NEW YEAR

It's very hot and humid here today - I'm hiding inside trying to do an interesting blog post but not having much luck. Then it suddenly came to me that if I was hot and thirsty the chooks were probably parched too! They have water in their shed but they've been ranging the garden these days and dust bathing under trees and there's no cool water dotted around for them. So I just took them a special delivery two buckets of cool water to have while they fluffed about in the dust and I swear they smiled at me!!

Our first house type job of the year was to paint the chook shed. It's called 'red box' and its VERY RED. My idea is for it to look like a kind of mini American style barn. Just got to add the white beading and it will be pretty special!

I know, there's not been much knitting seen here for a while. There's been a reasonable amount of it but it's been too boring to show in progress. You know?? Who wants to see inch after inch of stocking stitch week after week? Well not me. I've had enough for a while. Time to embark on some now projects for 2008. But first: the un-aired FO pile is getting pretty big. Time to show you a few.

I made a handful of one skein wonders for little friends of the kids. I've made so many now that I couldn't even be bothered to take any photos and I'll be pretty happy if I never knit another one again. Then came the design challenge of the 'Rachel Cardy'. I was thinking of knitting a pressie for the daughter of one of my friends. I asked Rachel about the OSW and she said: "Yeah I like it but it needs to be a bit longer and it needs to do up at the front..." I thought: " Woah! Eight year old girls really know what they want!! HELP!!" But what I actually said was: "Sure I can do that no worries. How about this colour?" and pulled out some Anchor Magic-line (not the self striping kind just the kind of multi print) that I got on sale for $1 a ball - she liked the colour - we were in business.

I got started and because I've made several basic top down raglan cardigans and enough OSW's to make me puke I didn't just sound confident - I really felt confident that I could do it. I had a good idea of her size as compared to my girls and I had a couple of things already knit up in the same yarn to I knew my gauge pretty well. So it was all systems go. I had to make a decision about how to do the bask and what to use for a tie at the front.

I went with K2P2 rib around the bottom and then picked up stitches along the two fronts and neck all in one piece. I was going to do i-cord for the tie but it looked too thick and I was a little low on yarn so I did a twisted cord. That was the perfect touch and the whole thing used exactly three balls!


I was so pleased to knit something straight from my brain and have it turn out EXACTLY as I pictured it. I know it's not the most complicated pattern in the world but I thought it through, worked out where to put the increases and etc AND IT WORKED!! Really Really well!


I was even more chuffed to see Rachel's reaction. Look she's smiling!! She likes it!


I considered it such a success that I started another for Gemma right away. Smaller - so it only used 2.5 balls . $2.50!!! I call that a bargain. Here 'tis:




Next Post: Making hay while the sun shines, WIPS and those pesky resolutions of the New Year kind.

Over and Out :-)