I finally fixed the sleeve seaming on the Jacket With Moss Stitch Bands. Turns out it wasn’t that much of a pain to do at all and it looks much better now.

I spent a lot of time this evening googling for knitted and crocheted flowers. I didn’t find much that appealed. I had been thinking of a number of smaller flowers along the bottom half of the sweater but in the end I decided that the gorgeous flower from Marnie’s Frog Pond was far and away the best option. And as it happens I did have scrap yarn in suitable colours, well stash yarn if not scrap yarn. The colours aren’t that accurate in this late night photo but I think the purples go beautifully with the green. The question is - is this the way to go?

If I stick with this flower the plan is to sew it down with beads, use pearly white heart shaped buttons, or possibly round shell buttons and leave the Hat and Shoes plain. Though I will be turning the shoes into mary janes by adding a little moss stitch strap, with matching button, to the shoes. Is it too much or not enough?

This is the last of my holiday photos. The holiday knitting was all about footwear - Moss Sitch Shoes and this Spearfish sock. Yes, I am finally working on the sock again. I had finished the gusset as we drove to Murwillumbah early on Thursday morning for a blood test. Who gets up at 6:30am on the last morning of their holiday? Apparently IVF patients do. It was a complete waste of time as the results didn’t turn up until after the test I had the next morning back in Sydney. Though we did have an amazing breakfast at a cafe in Murwillumbah that made it seem all worthwhile.

Anyway back to the sock. As we headed off to the airport later in the day I pulled the sock out and checked the pattern one last time as I imagined myself madly knitting through the instep of the sock. Just as well I did check. Turns out I had been a little over enthusiastic with the gusset and decreased my way down from a large to medium sized sock. I spent the journey to the airport ripping out the last 10 rows or so of decreases and painstakingly picking all those tiny stitches back up. Oops.

Now I really am ready to knit the instep.

While waiting for my bloods and scan Friday morning I seamed the first shoe. I wasn’t sure I had seamed the toe of the second shoe that well so I tried distributing the toe ease differently with this one, which turned out to be a big mistake. So I ripped it out and re-did it the same way I did the second shoe and now they match. Sort of. Apart from the size difference that is.

So apparently waiting for the dentist and waiting for bloods and ultrasound at the IVF clinic do not share the same stress level rating. Who would have thought? Can you guess which shoe I knit in which waiting room? I was actually a little surprised.

I choose to believe it will block out.

These shoes are really cute but way too open on top to ever stay on a baby’s foot. I am going to have to add some sort of strap or ribbon. I am also feeling more tempted by the minute to go back to the plan of decorating this set with flowers, or maybe even butterflies. The only thing stopping me is that I don’t have any scrap yarn in suitable colour/s. I feel a visit to the yarn store coming on.

Pattern: no pattern, just some strange guestimations based on gauge and other baby hat patterns
Yarn: Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran in Quartz, Alabaster and Ricepaper
Needles: a set of Bamboo DPNs and a 40cm Addi circular, possibly 4.5mm

I finally attached that pom pom. This time I put the two ends through stitches either side of the hole at the top, rather than through the hole itself. I then tied them together as tightly as I could and wove in the ends. It is sitting much more firmly atop the hat than the first attempt. And it goes beautifully with the Big Bad Baby Blanket, if I do say so myself (the hat that is, not just the pom pom).

There are some nice photos of ecOasis on their website, but here are a few more for good measure. This was the nicest place we have ever stayed, stunning environment, complete peace and quiet, gorgeous chalet, wonderful food delivered to our door… Everything was just perfect.

Mount Warning (Wollumbin) at sunset as seen from ecOasis.

Climbing Mount Warning

Mount Warning is absolutely beautiful and we are a very sad pair. I stopped half way up, well half way through our climb, so a quarter of the way up the mountain, to call my IVF clinic. Jesse felt the need to make a video call before we turned around and started back down the mountain. We had no less than three phones with us on our climb - my phone, Jesse’s phone and the CDMA phone he felt the need to buy in order to go on holiday and still have phone and internet access. And I must point out that this is the second time Jesse has bought a CDMA contingency phone, the last one he gave away after not using for over a year. Perhaps we should keep this one - now that you can get high speed internet in the middle of nowhere…Well you can if you are preapred to run virtual PC on your mac.

As I said, a sad pair, ready to do just about anything for internet access. And yes he has been working on holiday. It would’t be a holiday with Jesse if he didn’t answer an emergency call or three. But still we have had a wonderufully relaxing time and the walks have been simply stunning.

We went to Wooyung Beach on Tuesday.

I knit most of tthe second Debbie Bliss Moss Stitch Shoe while waiting for my first bloods of the cycle, I finished it on the plane later Monday morning. I seamed it yesterday while Jesse was helping someone instead of driving with me to the coast.

I seamed the I heel first using mattress stitch and the moss stitches don’t quite match up but I am leaving it as is.

I forgot to bring any pins and had to make do with toothpicks. What do they say? Necessity is the mother of invention?

Here it is, all done.

Can you believe how gorgeous this glass table is for photographing little shoes?

This mosquito’s legs were completely out of proportion to it’s body. You can’t tell from this photo but they were over an inch long (it’s body was fairly normal sized) and seemed to weight it down in a somewhat debilitating fashion.

Look closely, can you see it?

Oh and I have been knitting. More on that later.