Pattern: Sophie Bag
Yarn: Cascade 220, colour 7801 (hot pink) and Lambs Pride Worsted in “Orange You Glad”
Needles: US 11 Boye Needlemaster interchangeable needle, 6.5mm Tulip Bamboo DPNs

Sophie is done. The blocking worked well and she held her shape nicely once the plastic chopping board I used to shape her was removed.

The clasps turned out to be very easy to apply, I was able to force the prongs through the fabric without needing to cut holes and they folded down neatly. Attaching the flowers was a little more tricky than just pinning them down, as the clasp was slightly larger than the flower centers, but it worked out in the end.

It wasn’t until I started the second side that I realised it was better to sew the flower down first and then do a second round of stitches to add the beads. I think it looks slightly better than the first, but it might be partly due to this flower also being slightly better. I don’t know if anyone will ever notice the beads as they are so tiny, but they make me happy.

Isabelle’s travel quilt

I have been trying to get a nice set of photos of this quilt since we arrived in Adelaide. The constant rain prevent me from taking them outside and the poor light has prevented me from taking them inside. And then yesterday I had a break through with my camera - Yay! I finally figured out which of it’s shooting options will allow me to do a white balance and suddenly indoor photography is so much easier. So here you go, a picture of the whole quilt and one of each of the applique squares.

The quilt top is made from velour cord and the backing is flannel. This is the fourth piece of flannel I bought to go with this quilt top, the others were all from the same range, with the same colours. One was almost identical but with a hot pink background and the other two were the same colours but in a thin stripe pattern. The first piece of the striped flannel was the first backing I bought, the pink spots came second and then I bought the second piece of the stripes after deciding that I wanted to use it on the diagonal and realising I didn’t have enough yardage in the first piece. I picked up the piece I actually used at the same time as the second piece of the stripes, just in case I was wrong again and it ended up being the best choice.

The lovely soft fabrics make the quilt oh so snuggly and Isabelle loves it, but best of all she know’s it is her “away from home quilt”. Grandma Robyn (Jesse’s mum) asked her if it was for her bed the other day and she said “NO!” (insert horrified tone) “It’s for when I am away from home.”

Sophie has gone to my mother in law’s house for a holiday as she has her fire going twenty four seven at the moment, which offers the best chance of getting Sophie dry in time to gift her on Saturday. I forgot to take a photo before sending her off but she felted quite well. Doubling the yarn for the base didn’t turn out to be be the best of ideas but after two trips through the machine and some serious stretching of the body she is proportional enough not to require cutting the bottom off and reattaching it after trimming some excess.

With Sophie done it was time to cast on for Shedir. Or at least it was time to try. I sat down with The Knitter’s Handbook and a ball of calmer and I tried valiantly to make a Tubular cast on. Then I tried the Channel Islands cast on. Then I tried the Alternate Cable cast on. Then I gave up. I actually got close with the Alternate Cable cast on, but I couldn’t be sure I was putting the new stitches on to the needle in the right direction so I ripped that out too.

This morning I went to The Needle Nook to collect the Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed I had ordered in Posie for Rogue.

At first I thought they had a fairly small range, but it was just really tightly packed. Amongst other things they had the best range of Debbie Bliss yarn I have seen so far. I am itching to make a pair of socks and there is really no nice sock yarn available locally, this store had the only colour/fiber combination I have seen so far that I could live with, which was a nice chocolate, but I am pining for something a little more feminine. They also had a Debbie Bliss wool cotton in my favourite shade of pink and I nearly bought it on the spot but I just don’t know if it would be appropriate for socks - what do you think? I was immobilised by indecision and got nowhere with the sock yarn choice. But I did buy 4 balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in a nice chocolate brown to make Jesse a scarf (he doesn’t own a single scarf and had to borrow mine when we were in the snow).

While I was wondering around the store I overheard the sales assistant talking to an older customer who was sitting near the counter working on her knitting (this is the first time I have seen a customer actually knitting in an Australian yarn store by the way). Just to be clear the customer was the one doing the educating in this conversation. They were discussing cast ons for single rib and I was so excited I had to butt in and ask for a demonstration. I think she was as chuffed to be asked for help as I was to find someone to help me. So pulled out my ball of calmer and she showed both of us the method she had been describing, the Alternate Cable cast on no less. It turns out that I had been doing it pretty much the right way but seeing it in person really gave me confidence. I came home and tried to start Shedir one last time. Success at last!

The calmer is oh so lovely running through my fingers. Oddly enough I seem to knit much looser on smaller needles than I do on broomsticks - I never would have guessed. Then again maybe it is just the nature of the calmer.

Sophie is in the washer as I type. I decided to crochet a couple of flowers to cover up the prongs of the magnetic clasp but I was too scared to assemble it all pre felting in case my dodgy crochet felted really badly or some other disaster struck. The pattern for the flowers and the crochet instructions were found on line while using a friend’s computer last night and I don’t have links to either of them. If she hasn’t closed the windows yet I will get her to email me the links and post them later.

Update! The flowers are the violets from this pattern. I learned how to do the stitches here and fell in love with this table cloth along the way.

I need to finish Sophie tonight so I can felt her tomorrow and be confident she will dry by Saturday night. I have only a few rows of the body left to go, then the strap. The tricky part will be devising some sort of cover up for the magnetic clasp I intend to apply. I am not sure whether to attach the clasp to the bag and then attach a crocheted (and felted) flower over the top to cover it up or whether to knit little squares to attach the clasps too and sew them on to the bag pre felting. I guess I don’t have long to decide.

Oh, and the Boye needlemaster needles are great. Not addi’s but still quite nice. They did come undone once early on but I seem to have figured out how tight to do them up now.

We made it to Adelaide earlier than expected having had a better journey than expected. Who could have predicted that every time we tried to stop Isabelle would scream “NO! DON’T STOP! Just drive - I want to go to Anne-ma’s house NOW”. She was so patient and well behaved, a dream to travel with really. I haven’t got the energy tonight to write anything sensible but the extended entry has a ton of photos from the journey, mostly from our brief visit to Threadbo yesterday.

(There is more where this came from … )

Yesterday I got to spend over an hour in a great yarn store sans toddler. I wasn’t intending to buy I anything, I was really just passing time while I waited for our car to be checked over before the drive to Adelaide. Then I saw these.

I have been pining for a set of Denise needles for ages, until I actually saw a set a few weeks ago and was completely put off. I couldn’t stand the nasty moulding ridges on the needles, I didn’t like the plastic feel of them, the lumpy cable joins or the complete lack of weight/substance to the needles. I know that most people really like light needles, and I am not a fan of heavy needles but the denise needles felt a bit like using plastic cutlery to me - yuck. I am yet to knit with the needle master set but I couldn’t leave them in the store, I like that colours allow you to easily identify a pair and I much prefer the feel (and weight) of the metal. I hear the cable joins are more likely to come undone that the denise needles but I feel they will be much nicer to knit with.

I expect that I will stick with my addis when I can, but I think I will find these far more usable for filling in the gaps than I would have found a set of Denise needles. The need to keep an eye on the joins as I knit is something I will find much easier to live with than the nasty ridges in the plastic of the Denise needles, or the lumps in the Denise cable joins.

The missing needle points are in my knitting bag ready to cast on Sophie.

I have finished the quilt top for Isabelle’s travel quilt. The question is - can I layer and quilt it tomorrow (Thrusday) night? The trick is I have to pack too. We leave Friday, straight after our IVF nurse consult. The binding will be stitched down by hand so it can happen in the car, but the layering and quilting has to happen tomorrow night or the quilt won’t be coming with us.

The Debbie Bliss Cabled Jacket will definitely be coming with us and I hope to finally get some photos over the weekend. All I need is a second pair of hands, some daylight and perhaps some nice scenery…

A few photos from yesterday.

You will notice the photos stop mid process. That would be because I never did manage to complete the next step. About 5 hours after this last photo I gave up trying to sew the pieces back together and detached the whole upper piece of the left front. I then frogged it, wound it, wet it, microwaved it, re-knit it and finally re-seamed it. This morning I attached the last two buttons and put it straight on.

One of the things I hated about sewing my own clothes is that I would always be so sick of the garment by the end of the sewing that I couldn’t bear to wear it. If anything I have ever made deserves to be hidden at the back of the closet for years, this sweater is it. But you know what? I love it. LOVE IT. It’s too warm for our weather but I will probably wear it anyway because it’s gorgeous. I will post some photos as soon as I manage to take some that do it justice.

Tonight I have been working on Isabelle’s quilt, I would show you some photos but the light is just too crappy.

I am feeling really anxious about how late I am leaving Isabelle’s quilt but I just can’t stop. First I wasted no less than 5 hours trying to graft the stupid thing back together after ripping out the offending eight rows. I actually managed to graft the cables but there was just no amount of bashing my head against the blackberry stitch that was going to work and eventually I had to concede defeat. I write this as I wait for the frogged yarn to cool after wetting it as I rewound it and then microwaving it - thankyou Bonne Marie.

It will probably only take me an hour to reknit the top of the left front, and then maybe another hour to re seam it, I am not sure how long to graft the collar back on. But seriously, what was I thinking spending 5 hours trying to graft blackberry stitch? I could be done by now and working on that quilt. I would say live and learn but I probably won’t (learn that is).