Just in time for summer

I've been planning to knit myself a hat all. winter. long!

I played a little yardage chicken with this. The contrast colour is the Squoosh merino I spun recently. Or to be more precise, it's the 3 ply leftovers. I had an estimated 76m. After much project stalking it seemed that other ravellers used between 65 and 90m of the contrast colour so I decided to make a go of it. I'm pleased to say I made it with 2m of yarn to spare!
The pattern is Selbu Modern and is free on ravelry. I made a couple of mods you can check them out here.

Happiness is...

My youngster was feeling a bit blue yesterday. I was chatting to her about sock knitting since that was what I was doing at the time. After looking through my stash she declared I had way to many pinks and purples and that she would like some blue or green socks.
I dug out a skein of undyed sock yarn and we spent the afternoon mixing up the perfect sock yarn to cheer her up.

Now she just needs to learn to knit her own socks!

everyone loves a good yarn

From this:

To this:

 In two days... :-)

My little helper <3 Love her guts!!

Plying the yarn

Battling with my ancient Niddy Noddy. This one was obviously designed by a man! (or a non-spinner!)

 I have approx 130 metres of roughly DK- light worsted weight yarn. I was hoping for a bit more but for my first skein of yarn I'm pretty pleased.

before you ask me to knit for you...

The usual reaction people have upon finding out that I like to knit is to laugh. At me. Cos let's face it, only nanna's and weird people knit, right? This reaction is closely followed by: 'Oh hey, will you knit me a ..."

Let me break a few things down for you.

I love to knit. It's like a meditation for me. I find it incredibly relaxing and I even get jittery on the days I don't get to knit (classic addiction!) But I'm by no means a fast knitter. I plod along at my own steady pace, which is fine because knitting was never intended to be a speed sport. People sometimes balk when they discover that my socks took a month to knit, or that sweater took 6 weeks. That's not 6 weeks of solid knitting mind you, but still.

Recently a co-worker admired my cropped cardigan saying he would like me to knit one for his sister. How much would I charge? I told him that the cost would depend greatly on choice of materials plus the time it took to knit the garment. He told me casually to let him know if it would be cost effective or if he could buy one cheaper at Target. I immediately told him to go to target. Let me tell you why.

The sweater I was wearing that day used 3 skeins of Pigeonroof Studios Cassiopeia in the colourway 'Juniper'. The yarn cost me $65AUD on sale. I bought 4 beautiful coconut shell buttons which cost a total of $12. Then I took a grand total of 42 days to knit the sweater. Now I didn't knit every day on the sweater so let's assume I knit for 21 days at an hour a day, so the finished product took an estimated 21 hours to knit. Now let's assume I want to be paid a tiny wage of $10 per hour for my time. That takes the finished cost of that sweater to a grand total of: $287AUD. Yep, that's right, math doesn't lie. 

It's a pretty cute cardi though and sure, you could buy one a shitload cheaper in a store, but it would never be quite as awesome or infused with as much love (and sweat and tears) as a hand knit.

Teeny tiny little needles...

When I first decided to start knitting in earnest, about 4 years ago, I went shopping at my local big chain craft store and picked out a set of big, fat, chunky, purple 10mm needles and a basket-full of fat-assed wool.
I went home and cast on some stitches and knitted this:

Without a pattern I might add! Go me.

I was inspired by a good friend of mine who was knitting some gorgeous chunky little jumpers and shrugs.
The thing that inspired me was her philosophy of allowing the yarn to guide her and develop garments purely from instinct.

When I become passionate about something, I'm like a thirsty sponge, itching to absorb as much information as I possibly can on that subject.
I did it with cooking in my 20's. I knew more about the craft of cooking than most of the chefs I worked with at the time.
I went berserk with quilting a few years back and mastered most techniques to do with hand-quilting and even exhibited some of my art quilts.
Now my obsession is knitting and I crave knowledge.
I spend more time swatching and experimenting and getting frustrated trying to chart out my own lace patterns, than I actually spend knitting items of use.
Things have changed a bit for me over those last few years.
I remember knitting my first pair of socks. Baby size in 8ply. Pretty quick knit! And I so thoroughly enjoyed the process that I knew I would return to sock knitting. But at the time I tried to cast on these (which were just a teeeeny little beyond my capabilities) And as I wrangled the tiny little 3mm needles, I vowed I would NEVER EVER work with needles smaller than 4mm again. I mean, why would I? It would take FOREVER to actually get anywhere. So any socks I planned to knit were destined to be big fat wooly bedsocks, right?

Somehow, my memory isn't quite clear on this one, but somehow I promised my six year old a pair of socks. So, off to the shop and I bought some 3mm dpns. Pretty coloured wooden ones. But they were too grabby for this yarn, and the gauge was a little loose, so to the shop again. This time I came home with some damn expensive addi bamboo dpns (One of which I snapped on the first sock!!)
What size you ask? Well 2.5 freaking millimeters! I mean, I could use these as chicken skewers!

But I knitted those damn socks. And then another pair, and another, and another...

and now? More socks. on teeny tiny 2mm needles.
I would never have thunk it.
not ever.

Great Balls of Yarn!

a beautiful skein of Poseidon Sock from Pigeonroof Studios.
70% suerwash merino and 30% seacell.
To be made into these