I received more markers in the post! I had given up on the rest of my stitch marker swap pal’s sending markers so this was a wonderful surprise. Aren’t they gorgeous? Thankyou Stacey!

I have always loved Lily’s. Before Isabelle was born (when we spent money more recklessly) it seemed there was always a big vase of Lily’s somewhere in the house. Now I couldn’t say when I last bought flowers, until this week that is. I have been inspired by the beautiful Lily’s at ecOasis, that and they were outrageously cheap.

Thankyou all for your kindness, it has meant so much to me, really. I am sorry I have been silent for so long but there just hasn’t been much to say, well not about knitting anyway. I did knit three rows 9 days ago - hows that for scintillating knit blogging?

What I have been doing is recovering from the IVF, unpacking, enduring a little food poisoning, unpacking, trying to find a school for Isabelle (so that I can find a preshool), unpacking, fighting off some sort of nasty cold or flu, unpacking. You get the picture. Oh and having more blood tests, because you can never have too many blood draws you know. There is something about seeing new doctors that makes me drivel on like a lunatic, all the while trying (and failing) to at least be humorous since I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut. It takes hours to recover from these little episodes. And this was just a garden variety family doctor that I will most likely never see again. Anyway not much time for knitting. But as the house begins to resemble a home I have begun to ponder when I might resume knitting and I am yet to come to a precise answer.

There have been goodies in the post this week, I am hoping they will provide some sort of inspiration or temptation. I am determined to finish the Spearfish socks but to be honest they aren’t much fun, which is probably delaying my return to the needles. But just look at these irresistible goodies, I will have to finish my socks so I can play with the pretties! In the order that they appeared in my mail box.

Markers from Jenifer, sent as part of the stitch marker swap, aren’t the gorgeous? Just what I need right now.

More Khaki Calmer in the right dyelot! I had to email every single internet distributor listed on the Rowan website to find it so I cannot tell you how happy I am! Sadly while I have been waiting for the yarn to finish Shedir a family member has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is currently waiting to find out if she will be needing chemo or not. This hat was meant for someone else but I will now be sending it to her and wishing that I wasn’t. Not because I wouldn’t love to make her hat, I just wish it weren’t this hat, for this reason.

Koigu! Alison, who mentored me through my first real knitting project has yet again reached out from so far away to enable my knitting.

And finally does anybody know if there is some rule spammers have about spamming you more the less you post? I have been receiving an INSANE amount of spam the last week and I seem to recall a similar pattern in the past. Do the think that if we aren’t posting we aren’t moderating? Ugh.

Would you look at that, two more repeats of the leg. I was going to ditch this sock, try a different pattern with the other ball and then rip this if I liked the second option better. Just goes to show that sometimes it is worth trying once more before giving up. I am getting gauge (hooray!), so I suspect that it is not going to fit. I realise it’s hard to imagine, but I know a few women with bigger feet than me and they are on my Christmas knitting list so if it doesn’t fit I do have options.

This yarn is so darn hard to photograph. My camera really doesn’t like the colour and I haven’t the faintest idea how to help it cope. I wish I could get a close up of those tiny stitches, they are so small and so regular that I find myself chortling stupidly to myself every time I stop to have a good look at them.

Oh and aren’t these markers pretty? They match the sock quite nicely don’t you think? Thanks again Jen.

And finally, for those of you who are interested my egg pickup will be Wednesday lunch time, turns out this IVF thing is for real. We should hear whether we got a house we just applied to rent around the same time. Big day Wednesday.

I made more stitch makers. These ones are mine, and there are two more sets the same, one for the stitch marker swap and one for posterity.

I also added these to my own collection. I don’t know what I think I am going to do with all these markers, but they are just so pretty. Perhaps this is my way of making up for not wearing jewelry any more?

It’s my birthday today and along with some lovely candles and CDs Jesse gave me 4 balls of delicious Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton in my favourite shade of pink (isn’t he clever?). I can’t tell you how badly I want to use this to cast on a pair of socks RIGHT NOW, it is so soft and so pink, it’s calling me. However, according to Julia this yarn knits up like cotton, not like wool. I just don’t think I want to knit my first pair of socks from cotton or something like it, due both to the knitting and the wearing. Common sense is telling me to stash this for later use as gorgeous baby gift.

In the mean time I have nothing to knit. Yesterday I express posted all of my JS Aran Tweed swatches to Jo Sharp’s studio, they seemed to feel that having a swatch that was on gauge would help their argument with the mill that something has changed. I feel Rogue slipping through my fingers. At best it is going to be a week before I can start Rogue, it may be a lot more, and I was hoping to be finished in a week or two. It will be well and truly spring by the time I am done if I knit it this year and as I am trying to believe that the IVF will work I am sincerely hoping to be pregnant next winter. It just feels a bit pointless knitting a sweater that I won’ t get to wear for 2 years (and that is making the very large assumption that I will be roughly the same size in two years time). I have baby gifts to make, but can’t quite stomach that right now, I have Christmas gifts to make but heck it’s barely august. I just want to knit Rogue or socks and I don’ t have yarn for either.

I have read all of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in the last few days.

My stitch marker swap had begun! First there was the arrival of these stunning markers from Jennifer. All I can say is WOW! Some close ups….

I just love that each set is on a different size ring and quite different in construction and yet they all seem to hold together too. I wish I could find such a variety of rings.

In other news I have been making a gazillion markers myself, both for the exchange and for a few other people I have promised makers too. There is a new set for me in there too, can you guess which ones?

You may have noticed a few of them are missing rings, I ran out of both sizes while making these last night. Jesse took the car to work this morning and the stroller with it, leaving us somewhat limited in our options for getting around, which forced us into visiting what may be the most expensive bead store in Sydney. I did buy some rings but they just weren’t big enough for all of markers. Getting the right rings seems to be my main problem with making makers. Hopefully I will sort this hurdle out tomorrow and be able to mail all the markers out on Monday.

Last night I had a lot of fun with these. I am so excited about the stitch marker swap!

I received two parcels last week from people I had made trades with for my stitch markers. Both of them sent back way more than we had agreed on, or than I could possibly have imagined. They also did a far nicer job of the packaging. When I post my knitted gifts I always take great care with the packaging. In fact the wrapping, card, packaging and post for the green scarf I sent my mother this month cost more than the yarn and beads. And yet for some reason I just haven’t been as engrossed in the process of presenting my stitch markers nicely to the people I post them too. Perhaps it is because they are so tiny that they need to go into a zip look bag for fear of one of them disappearing. If you have received a set of markers from me in nothing more glamorous than a zip lock bag and a padded envelope please accept my apologies. Trading with these lovely ladies has pointed out the error of my ways.

Froggy agreed to send me a skein of Lambs Pride Worsted in Orange You Glad. This is what I found when I opened the parcel.

The Orange Lambs Pride is to go with some hot pink Cascade 220 that Cara sent me for some stitch markers months ago (Cara also sent twice as much yarn as she was supposed to btw). I am going to make a bag, or two. The rest is well, wow, I have no idea. I was thinking of using this gorgeous Rowan Big Wool to make Isabelle a hat.

But given Isabelle’s general reluctance to wear warm clothing I am swaying towards making a lovely scarf like Steph’s for myself.

The second parcel came from Nikki, and I have to say receiving such beautiful markers made by someone else is just so much fun. It makes me even more excited about joining up for Anita’s stitch marker swap. Nik sent twice the number of markers we discussed, packaged in this beautiful bag. I can’t wait to start knitting on a needle smaller than the broomsticks required for the Debbie Bliss Cabled Jacket so that I can use them!

The knitting cards that both Nik, and Froggy sent are just too cute, I have never seen anything like them here in Australia and I have already sent one them off to another knitter. Thank you both for trading with me, your kindness really made my week.

And finally one more item to tie in with the stitch markers theme. I am a huge fan of using a row counter but I always knit on circulars and I just don’t remember to turn the numbers unless it is actually attached to my knitting. Up until last week my inelegant solution to this problem was to hang the counter from a loop of string. I can’t tell you how annoying this solution was, almost annoying enough to forgo the use of the row counter. I cut off that string and made this the very first chance I had after seeing Anita’s very clever solution to this problem.

This, is much better. So thank you too Anita!

I was just a little busy last night. I am keeping the first set of multicolour hearts for myself, and I can’t show you my favourite set of markers because I made them with someone in mind and want them to be a surprise. But here are the rest of them, in the order that I made them, for want of a better system.

I made these at least a week ago, I filed them safely away and promptly forgot them. I found them again today while fetching out a couple of other sets to post far, far away…. It’s so nice to think that someone far away will be enjoying my markers one day soon! Making pretty things really does make me happy, just as well I can honestly say that something makes me happy after all the doom and gloom yesterday.

The good news: Isabelle’s scarf is done and I like it! Even better news, so does she!

The bad news: It’s upside down.

Tonight I will remove that heart and reapply it the right way up. Stay tuned, I may even get a photo of Isbaelle wearing this one.

Not many of you seemed that keen on trading cotton yarn for the stitch markers, so I have ditched that idea. However, I am still producing way more markers than I need so if you were interested (or you are interested) and you see a set you like please let me know and we can sort something out. I would love to see my markers actually used and enjoyed (and an excuse to make more). I may get really organised and make a page to display all the markers currently looking for a home, we shall see.