My First Knitted Project

Okay, this is for all the GLBT-Knit list people.
One member asked what everyone's first project was. In my attempt to clean out all my childhood memories and random junk, I found not only my first piece of knitting I did when I was five, but also my first project.

It's a small piece of knitting, about 5cm square in a pale pink yarn. I did this when I was five. It was my mum's way to try and stop me from learning to read before I started school. She did this so I would be at the same level as everyone else when I started school. Didn't stop my voracious reading appetite.
You can see where I added a few stitches, and I think I tried turning when I wasn't meant to. But still relatively square shaped.

My first full project, started when I was about 8 and worked on intermittently for the next 4 or so years, was the obligatory scarf. Its about a metre long, and I changed yarns when I ran out of the previous, never at the end of the row. You can see that clearer in the second picture. I've also used different ply yarns. It is honestly the most hideous thing you can imagine, and like most of my projects, its STILL ON THE NEEDLES!!!!

Click to enlarge the picture, only if you dare!

And here's the Transcript...

Ooh, I got my name on the screen.
http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/sa/content/2006/s2022241.htm
I got my 10 seconds of fame, as did my hands several times and my socks, which I'm wearing today. Denise had a few shots as well, as did the baby socks she was knitting.
Yay for us!

We're Gonna Be on TV

Yup, ABC Stateline program this coming Friday. Unfortunately only people in South Australia will be able to see it. I don't know if they put info on their website. Hmm, must check it out.
Anyway, it was for the KTog knitting group, Stateline wanted to do a piece on knitting groups and the popularity of them, and these crazy ladies meeting in pubs. Yes, they did a scene of me drinking my beer. Although they may cut that since Denise made me snort beer out my nose by cracking a joke just as I got a mouthful.
I also said a few things, I think.
So, ABC at 7:30 this Friday if you're in South Australia.

Mt Pleasant Wool Festival

I've finally got my camera out, and I've gone snap happy over our latest purchases at the Mt Pleasant Wool Festival.
It was a great day out. We had two spare seats in the back of the car, and Frances and Nancy joined us. For a small town hall, it's amazing how much wool can be packed into it.
When we got home we spread the wool out across the floor and after a thorough cat scan, we pulled out all our knitting mags to find the right pattern for it.
With such lovely wool, we have to do justice to it. This can't be turned into just a garter stitch scarf, it has to be something that makes the wool stand out. Any suggestions?

This wool I had to fight for. It's a Wool/Silk blend. I found this on our first trip around the hall (we did several). Nancy liked it too, but I grabbed hold first. It's sooo soft. I was thinking beanie or lace scarf. Maybe. There's just under 100g of this wool.
This was from the Coloured sheep breeders table. They had lots of beautiful fleeces for sale, lots of silvers and darker grays. The coloured wool intrigued me. Mine has a base of a darker gray wool that has been dyed over. I was thinking of using this in a panel for a vest.
The tag says its hand spun dyed Wool/Cash/Angora, and there's 100g of it.
Denise picked out some wool with a silver base. The colours are a lot brighter than mine. This one is just wool and there is only 80g of it. Denise has no plans for it yet.



This is some very beautiful Alpaca. It's surprisingly light and in these two large balls there is 155g of wool. I was thinking of using this for the main colour of the vest, and using the coloured handspun in a pattern or panel. I should have enough for a vest and some left over.
The first time we went to the Mt Pleasant festival Denise picked up a skein of this handspun baby wool and made the lacy scarf. Now she wants something to go with it. She's trying to work out if the Little Arrows pattern she used in the scarf will translate well into a beanie pattern.
This wool came in two size skeins. The 100g we have here, or 500g! It was one continuous skein. Don't ask me where you get a wool winder for that size skein. It was tempting. Just enough for a very beautiful soft jumper.
On the table with this wool was a few knitted goods, including a drop stitch scarf. It displayed the wool and the three colours in the wool perfectly. Some of the other examples you could see one colour would dominate in sections.
The funniest part of the trip up to Mt Pleasant was driving between Birdwood and Mt Pleasant. There are fields, and cattle, and sheep, and suddenly four women in the car getting very excited about a paddock of alpacas. Actually there were several paddocks of alpacas, baby ones, jet black ones, recently shorn alpacas and ones with giant mop-tops. On the way back we had to stop into Akhira Alpaca farm.
Denise rummaged through the basket of handspun, and we cooed over the chocolate brown wool. The woman in the shop brought out a bag of wool that she was about to put out. The gray was even more striking. This ball had some beautiful variegation in it, we just had to buy it. Again, another ball around 100g.

The Akhira Alpaca farm is have a big open day soon, they'll be displaying a lot of their alpacas, and the Bengal cats they breed too. We'll be saving up for that weekend too.

Lolcats liek Wool

I've been drawn... no, sucked into the world of lolcats, those cute pictures of cats with funny sayings, laughing and imagining our little darling thinking or doing some of these things.
Been having fun at www.lolcats.com and http://icanhascheezburger.com

Some of my favourite woolly lolcats:









There shall be our knitting content, when I find the batteries to the camera.
I've finally finished:
Tubey
Those everlasting socks made from the Moda Vera Adore from Spotlight
That little dress for my cousins daughter (it's sooo cute)
And a few small scraps of hand dyed wool to make into beanies

Some UFO Success

Okay, an update on the UFOs.

1. Red Baby Jacket (my oldest project at 3 years old)

2. Purple Baby blanket (about 2 and a half years)

3. My baby wool socks

4. Red baby socks

5. Red fluffy beanie

6. Brown & pink wrist warmers

7. Green sock wool wrist warmers

8. Maroon baby socks (although I may frog this as I've made it too short)

9. Yellow children's slipper

10. Purple & white socks

11. Tubey jumper

12. Brown granny square blanket

13. Dress for baby gift

14. Pink and blue stash slashing beanie

15. Socks for Denise's Nan

16. The square for Brooklyn's blanket

17. Coronet beanie for mum

18. Origami Slippers

And Denise's list:

1. Alan's socks
2. Mum's socks
3. Blue Tubey
4. Ang's Adapted Tubey
5. Green Cable Jumper- Frogged it
6. Wave Alpaca Scarf
7. Frog - 2004
8. Dad's Footy Scarf - early 2005;
9. Blue and Yellow Gloves
10. My Socks
11. Teddy Bear
12. Baby Suit
13. Cable Coronet
14. Blue Fetchings;
15. Dad's Water Bottle Cover
16. Cathy's Fetchings

Yeah, I know, I've done very little, Denise beats me by far more projects. And I've cast on too much. I have another stash slashing beanie, made two pairs of wrist warmers, and have bought more wool than I can use.
And despite all this, I'm getting bored with what I'm knitting. I need something a little more exciting. That's why I thought we'd go through our UFO list and see if there is anything in that we want to continue with, and then find where we left it in the house.
On the plus side, I have finally cast off Tubey. It is sooooo nice and warm. I've worn it three days running.

Busy Busy

Its not that we're just too busy, its more that at the moment when I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is go online, and real life is getting full enough without the online life too.
I'm beginning to wonder if we should keep this going, or just let things die out.
There may be pictures, there may be more knitting updates, but at the moment, we'll just see how things go.

More Stash and UFOs

I've realised that its been ages since I actually posted here. We've just been too busy knitting, and I've started a new job.
That was one crazy ride. My job at the State Government finished the week before the wedding. The Wednesday before I got a quick 4 question interview on the phone. Friday I got a call back to say I'll be having an in person interview on the Monday (just after the wedding). Monday I had the interview. Tuesday I got a call to say I got through to the next round, which was an interview on Wednesday with manager in the finance section. Wednesday at the interview I was offered the job. As of Monday the 23rd I've been working for Anglicare SA as part of the IT team. It's a great place to work, I work with some pretty crazy people, and I really fit in well. Definitely feels different to where I was before. And they seem to have cake for morning tea almost every second day.
So back on track with the knitting.
For our wedding we got a $50 voucher to IKEA, which we just had to spend. Denise has had enough of the stash all over the ground in a pile, so we bought a second stash tower. And it all fits in, well that was until the new Bendigo order arrived.
Thankfully someone through Anglicare needed donations of yarn, so I got rid of all my scraps of yarn, and those odd balls of fluffy stuff that seems to breed when I'm not looking.
It's scary how much I'm beginning to hoard, and the different types of wool we have. There are at least two tubs full of Bendigo Mills wool. And the large tub at the bottom of the front tower is full of sock wool.
So, apart from this, we've also joined up with the UFO competition through the GLBT-Knit list.
This was my UFO list as of the 29th of April:

1. Red Baby Jacket (my oldest project at 3 years old)

2. Purple Baby blanket (about 2 and a half years)

3. My baby wool socks

4. Red baby socks

5. Red fluffly beanie

6. Brown & pink wrist warmers

7. Green sock wool wrist warmers

8. Maroon baby socks (although I may frog this as I've made it too short)

9. Yellow children's slipper

10. Purple & white socks

11. Tubey jumper

12. Brown granny square blanket

13. Dress for baby gift

14. Pink and blue stash slashing beanie

15. Socks for Denise's Nan

16. The square for Brooklyn's blanket (does that count? Its only been on the needles for two days)

17. Coronet beanie for mum

18. Origami Slippers

And Denise's list:

1. Alan's socks
2. Mum's socks
3. Blue Tubey
4. Ang's Adapted Tubey
5. Green Cable Jumper
6. Wave Alpaca Scarf -
7. Frog - 2004
8. Dad's Footy Scarf - early 2005;
9. Blue and Yellow Gloves
10. My Socks
11. Teddy Bear
12. Baby Suit
13. Cable Coronet;
14. Blue Fetchings;
15. Dad's Water Bottle Cover;
16. Cathy's Fetchings

Well, I'd like to show off our first things finished.
The boob tube Denise adapted from the Tubey jumper pattern. I modeled it for Denise, otherwise it just looks like an odd tube. Denise gave it a picotted cast off along the bottom, as well as giving it a folded down top to hide some elastic in. The last thing Ang would like is to have her top fall down while she's bouncing and jiggling on the dance floor. Might help her to pick up though...

And my Merino Bambino socks. There would have to be the best socks I have made so far. The wool is sooooo smooth and warm. I think I might try the new dye lot that seems to arrived this season. It has more blue and yellow in it. Well that's my excuse for making another pair.
Thankfully they seem to have mostly kept their pattern. Jessica made a pair that had two different patterns, despite making both identical.

Oh, and to my surprise the other day, I noticed that Spotlight have sock wool, of sorts. Its their Moda Vera range, the wool is called Adore. It's very fine, but seems to be the same 25% polymide, 75% wool that most sock wools are comprised of. Was rather shocked when I read the recommended needles and tension for the yarn. 4.5mm needles! The example they hang by the wool was so loose I can imagine that it's not going to attract too many people to it. Anyway, I've got a couple of balls, especially since they were only $3.95 for 50g. Denise's Nan is getting a pair of socks made out of this. So far they feel nice. It will be interesting to see how they wear.

We Did It!

Wow, we did it!

Denise and I got married on Saturday (and I promise I'll stop talking about it soon and get back to the knitting talk).

The day was perfect, the weather was just right, and the company was great. And Denise looked absolutely stunning in her dress. I can't believe how smoothly the whole day went. It was amazing, and everything just felt right.

Our parents were fantastic, and the amount of relatives we had attend was heartwarming. No negative feelings from anyone. We had lots of people comment that it didn't matter about laws or society, everyone could see that we truly loved each other and belong together.

I'm still trying to take it all in. Wow!

We've got an online photo album where all my friends and family who had digital cameras are uploading their pictures for us. There are just too many pictures to post them here, so it will be best to just give a link. http://s177.photobucket.com/albums/w210/geekandlawyer/

I hope you drop past and take a look.
Some of the details of the day. If anyone wants the contact details for any of the businesses we used, leave a comment and we'll pass on what we know.
Denise's bridesmaids/mates/attendants were her sister Angela, and friend Frances. Mine were Tessa, a friend since Kindergarten, and Peter, who is a mutual friend of ours. Poor Tessa was standing in the path of ants for a fair bit of the ceremony, so the pained look on her face in the photos was from the ants biting her legs. If it had been me, I would have being doing my ant slapping dance.
Our Celebrant was Merrilyn Williams. She helped make the day fantastic, and we've had a few people asking for her details. Although be warned, we had her booked for over 18 months, and we didn't get the exact time we wanted because someone else had already booked for same the afternoon.
The ceremony was held at Waterfall Gully in the Mt Lofty ranges. It was absolutely magical there, the ceremony was held with the lake and the waterfall in the background. Wikipedia has some great pics of the area and a bit of history too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_Gully,_South_Australia
We also at the reception up at Waterfall Gully, in the restaurant located about 200m from the falls. The meal was beautiful, and the room was just the right size for everyone. It felt so cozy and warm and from what we heard, we got the seating arrangement pretty spot on. Everyone was talking. Some made some new friends. Someone, who will remain anonymous, went out drinking with her new friends, until 5am.
My mum made our wedding cake. She's been doing professional wedding cakes for... um... a long time. The bottom tier was chocolate, the middle was orange and poppy seed and the top tier was a fruit cake which we plan to save and use when we legally get married.
And the shawl, I'm sure there are pictures of it somewhere. Denise didn't get to wear it for long, the day was nice and warm, and indoors was quite comfortable. I decided two days before the wedding that I was going to edge it, and ended up almost upending the stash tower to find the right shade of green wool. I did manage to finish it, about the same time as Denise's hairdresser finished her hair. Talk about cutting it close.
And those beautiful cars are '57 Chevvy's. The people who live across the road from us do wedding cars, I've been eying them off since we moved into this place. I got to ride in the red convertible, and Denise and her bridesmaids got the sedan. A smart move with all that styled hair. The strange thing is, the owner of the cars, is also a builder, who helped build our townhouse. Very small world.
Anyway, I hope to return to our regular programming soon. Suddenly we have a lot of knitting projects and due dates, so I'll be back with plenty of photos.

Almost Married

The date is getting closer, and we're beginning to realise, shit! we're actually getting married.
The certificates came through yesterday for our name change. So officially and legally we now have a joined surname. Although we're not going to use it until the 14th. Denise's dress is almost finished and I had a fitting for my shirt on Monday. Unfortunately with a week before the wedding also comes the due date for a lot of the payments.
Denise has finished my wedding socks, and was so pleased with the stretchy bind-off she's found. I think this will now become 'her sock pattern' she loves it so much. I've tried the socks on to make sure they fit, but I don't want to ruin or dirty them yet. The little hearts on them are so cute.
I stuffed my jumper sleeve in one of the socks so the pattern shows up a bit better.
And I've got the shawl finished. Thanks to advice from people on the GLBT-Knit list, I blocked the shawl last night, and it does make lace look a look nicer. I don't know if I will bother doing it for everything I knit, especially socks and beanies. Now I just have to add some edging to it. I'm thinking a crochet edging, something that won't take too long either since there is only 9 DAYS TO GO!
You can see the hearts a little clearer in the second picture. I was going to do smaller hearts, similar to the ones on the socks Denise made, but I think this is just as nice.
I'm currently writing this blog from work. It's my last day here, and I'm just cleaning up my desk, deleting old files off my computer and finalising things here. Unfortunately no further work has come through yet, so when people ask me where I'm going to next I'm telling them Centrelink... as a customer. I've had a couple of job interviews, here's hoping I get a job from one of them.
Anyone need a computer geek with good technical hardware and troubleshooting skills?
Pictures to be added when I get home.

Grrrrr!

Denise is really really really pissed off. Her last two wisdom teeth were meant to come out on Thursday. There was an appointment booked with the Dental Clinic for the yoinking of these teeth, we'd spent a restless night beforehand, and had prepared the icepacks and DVD's for days worth of resting, and recuperating, and me running around being nurse. Plus I had planned all my knitting I would do while looking after Denise. I had even booked a flexi day off work to take her in.
And we get there, the Dental receptionist wanted her to pay for THREE teeth to come out (seems this dentist is very insistent that her wisdom tooth on the other side should still come out, despite what our regular dentist said, and wrote), and we get in there and find out IT WAS ONLY A CHECK-UP!
Normally I'm a very nice person, I don't swear at people unnecessarily. I think this was necessary. I was damn furious, Denise was quietly seething. Possibly plotting to nut him.
Needless to say, once we know Denise never has to see this dentist again, we're making an official complaint, not just to the hospital, but also our local politicians. I can't understand how they can get away with treating people in the public system like this.
Even writing this has made me angry again. GRR!
We had some retail therapy after though. IKEA, and this great underwear shop for women with... well larger than usual boobs. Found some great clothes. And this sexy little corset.
Needless to say, that being so angry, very little knitting has been done. Don't want to knit something too tight.

Teeth and Traumas

Poor Denise is in the wars at the moment. The wisdom teeth came out. Actually, it was only two that came out, the next two come out in a week. And she's taking full advantage of the sooky time. My poor girl has been sitting on the couch for the past 4 days, with an ice pack against her cheek watching Buffy, and Star Trek, and the Muppets, and lot of other things in the DVD shelf.
But it's been a good excuse for me to join her in sitting around, watching TV and knitting.
I've got another repetition of the shawl done. Although I mainly knit that on the bus because I can concentrate on the stitches. No one talks to the crazy lady with the knitting needles.
Instead my TV watching project has changed from stash slashing beanies to a acrylic/mohair crochet granny square rug. It's finished dimension is 120cm across. It might add to it if I find any more yarn later. But at the moment its a throw rug that we'll keep on the back of the back of the chair for when we're cold and too lazy to get a blanket from upstairs.
As you can see, the correct way to use the new rug. It's surprising warm, if only the weather wasn't.

Beanies, Beanies, Beanies

These are my beanies I started the other day on Australia Day when I cleaned out the stash. This has only been two weeks worth of knitting too.
Starting with "I hate the colours, but my sister loved it and I bought one too many balls for her scarf, so what can I do with it?"
It's nasty and chunky and acrylic, but it's one less ball in my stash now. It was knitted on a 6mm circular needle, but I think I should have gone up higher to 7mm. It was the excuse I gave to justify buying a pair of Addi Turbo's.
Next is "too much of the ball left over to throw out, not enough to make anything on its own, what else goes with it?"
The orange is a bit of Zhivago I got in a bargain bag from Spotlight. Next time I won't knit it on 6mm needles. The purple and green are nice and firm, but the orange is a bit loose. And the beanie is too big for my poor model.
And this is "What the hell was I thinking when I bought this yarn?"
It probably doesn't show up in the picture, but its boucle type fluffy acrylic. I can't even remember why I bought it in the first place. Well it's all used up now. I added the pompom to finish off the last bit of yarn, and because it seemed a little too pointy.



I know what you're thinking. Is that Feathers yarn I see knitted in this beanie. Sadly, I say yes. I called this monstrosity "what to do with the Bargain Bag yarn you didn't really want, but bought because of the three balls you did want."
See, even Teddy was trying to get away from this beanie. But while I may hate the beanie, its fluffy and soft, and I'm sure someone will love it.



This is the leftover yarn from Denise's cousin's drop stitch scarf. I tried not to make the top of the hat such a sharp decrease so that it puckers and turns into a BHH (butt hole hat). I think I ended up with the other extreme.



This is my first beanie like this. The purple fuzz over the top is some fluffy stuff that originally was going to be for a beanie. When I started knitting this into a beanie I realised that despite using 6mm needles, I was getting no where fast with it, the beanie material felt more like polar fleece, but no where near as warm. So I frogged it, and found the pink wool (Denise swears it is red, I claim deep pink) and started knitting it double. I love this beanie. The really nice wool combines with the not so nice fluffy stuff, and makes a nice soft woollen beanie with a fluffy coating.
I loved the previous beanie so much, that I had to do it again. This time I used a ball of green wool, and some purple fluffy. Unfortunately I ran out of purple/blue fluff halfway thought, so I went back to the other purple. Actually, I meant to do that. It's part of the style.


And number eight is in the same style as the last two, I'm using the same fluffy purple, I started with the green, but ran out, out I went back to the deep pink. I'm tempted to keep it, but do I really need another beanie?
And lastly I had to show off the shawl I'm knitting for Denise. I've got the pattern mostly written up now, although I've had to re-write it a couple of times. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to finish it, if I change the large heart pattern to smaller heart mixed with a few big hearts, or if I just continue on. I'll wait for another few repeats and see what Denise thinks. I also have to figure out how to edge it. It's got a nice edging that will be easy to crochet and edge to, or create stitches on. Here's hoping inspiration will hit soon.

Dyeing Fun

Denise and I decided that despite the torrential tropical rain we had in Adelaide over the weekend, that we would finally do something about all the white wool we've been hoarding.
So I pulled out the first edition of Yarn Magazine that has dyeing instructions, and we started skeining all our wool, using the back of the chair. Then a quick trip down to the supermarket for 9 bottles of food dye and 8 litres of vinegar.
And this was on the morning when I finally decided to do some FLYLady cleaning, and fling out the crap in my plastics cupboard. All those margarine and take-away containers we don't normally need, got turfed and then retrieved to be used as dye containers.
Anyway, this will be fairly picture intensive, but we have to show off our creative work.
Helen's purple and green 8ply Bendigo Wool, 200g. No plans for this one yet.
Helen's yellow and purple (although its more blacky mud), 12 ply. Possibly will be made into a beanie.
Helen's rainbow wool. 5 ply, 150g or so from two half used balls. SOCKS, Socks and more socks til I run out of wool!
Denise's rainbow wool. 8ply 200g ball of Bendigo wool. Just waiting for inspiration
Denise's mottled 12 ply. Looks better in the ball than the skein. This will become a few pairs of Fetching wrist warmers.
Denise's yellow, red and black (although more a browny purple colour), 5 ply Bendigo Mills wool, about 100g of it. This is also destined to be socks. We used black dye, but the colour kept on running, and by the time the water ran clean, it was more a brown colour, which has dried to a deep purple. The colours still look good together. I see socks happening here.
Denise's red, blue and white Bulldogs wool. 12ply, so more Fetchings, and other football things. Possibly a scarf and beanie, depending on how much is left.
Denise's rose pink and green wool. 5 ply Bendigo wool. This is already currently being knitted into socks.
And this is what happens when we decide to go hunting through the stash for more white wool. We decided to pull the buckets in the tower out, tip wool all over the floor and sort while watching Star Trek. (Did I mention I'm a Trekkie? And I'm trying to convert Denise). I found some oddments, pulled out my 6mm circular needles and cast on for a beanie. By the end of the evening I had these. And the third beanie sits next to me on my computer desk, slowly being knitted as I wait for pictures to upload.
These will be sent off for the Guardian Angle charity knit. Anyway, the top one is called "I hate the colours, but my sister loved it and I bought one too many balls for her scarf, so what can I do with it?", the second one is call, "too much of the ball left over to throw out, not enough to make anything on its own, what else goes with it?" The purple one I'm knitting at the moment is call "What the hell was I thinking when I bought this yarn?" You'll understand when I post the picture.
Ooh, and we're about to go out to IKEA and buy a new stash tower. Denise has conceded that I have too much yarn for just one tower. Yay!

Ahhh!!! Holidays

Yes, I have been on holidays, my first real Christmas break in years, no pre-Christmas/
post-Christmas sales, no Back-to-School orders,
And we did very little of what we planned to do. And many things we didn't plan.
Like go to Mt Gambier. I haven't been there in 5 years, since my grandfather died, and its been good to go back there. It was even better to go with Denise and see everything new through her eyes. Having grown up visiting there every Christmas when I was little, I've seen all the tourist attractions, yes the lake is blue, caves are dark, pine forests smell nice and limestone has fossilised shells and bones in it. You start forgetting how interesting the place is.
The only problem with our holiday was that we decided to travel on a 38 degree day, and I've realised that my air-conditioner must have a leak in it, as it was re-gassed last year, and now just blows hot air. It was a welcome rest going for a tour down the Naracourte caves, where it was at least 15 degrees cooler than the surface.
So the first thing I had to show Denise while there was the infamous lake. We went to the look-out, and found that there is an even better look-out, just up those steps!
At the top of the steps is one of the main water holding tanks, where water is pumped from the lake to, and held before going down to the city to use. The reason for it being so high is to give decent water pressure to the city.
And of course, once you climb up, you have to climb down again!
While there we also had to go on a guided tour down to almost to the edge of Blue Lake. The first time I did this tour we actually stood on a small platform just over the water, however since then the level has dropped 2m, making the metal steps too step.
The tour was very informative, and a damn sight cooler than anywhere else unless it involved ice.
We got a lot of the history of the area, as well as a lot of the science behind how it was formed and why the water is blue.The reason for the blue is because the water is filtered through kilometres of limestone as is flows down to the coast. The water that is in the lake is actually still moving, just really slowly. So the water is ultra filtered, and very pure, and also contains tiny particles of the limestone. In winter they tend to be denser, the water has a vision range of about 17m, and the lake appears grey. However in summer they seem to drop away, the water has a vision range I think about 25m (I can't remember the numbers), so when you look at it from above, you can see so much deeper, and the water appears much bluer. The tour guide explained it so much better than me.
Understandably with all this heat, there hasn't been much knitting.
I'm currently trying to find a nice heart pattern to make a shawl for Denise for our Commitment Ceremony. I've got a few, so I'm trying them out, see which one looks the best, which ply wool to use, which size needles, then ordering a couple of balls from Bendigo. I can't find a shawl pattern I like, but I've got an idea on how I want it to look. Let's hope I can draft something up.
Denise has cast on a Tubey Jumper of her own, so I'm now compelled to get mine finished before she does. I've only got another 20cm to go, but that damned 3x1 rib is making me not want to finish it. It's boring, but you need just enough concentration to remember to purl every fourth stitch.
Now I'm back at work I need a small traveling project, and I have almost finished my first Merino Bambino baby wool sock. The wool is so soft, and the colours are so bright. I love these already. It's bad manners to take your shoe and sock off in public to test your sock length? Right?
Denise has cast on for another pair of fetching gloves. She's getting to be quite the project whore. She has almost as many projects on the needles as I do. I'll have to do a count later when I update the side bar.
Oh, and the last big thing since I updated this, I've hit another milestone in my life, the quarter century! I am now 25, although I was feeling old before the numbers changed.