Photo courtesy of Damo
I have decided to go to the Bendigo Sheep & Wool show this year. Some Ravelers are organising a Brekky BBQ & if I want to drag my butt out of bed to meet everyone at 8am I’m gonna need some strong reinforcements.
Koolhaas to keep my head & ears warm, some sort of mittens for toasty hands & a hip flask of something strong & alcoholic to keep my insides warm & get me over the shock of a Bendigo winter’s morning.
Precious gems; Lustrous fabrics; Luxury, sumptuousness, extravagance.
The finer things in life…
Sublime Swatch
Further to my last post, the management of CSIRO Geelong & 5 representitives from the alliance of CSIRO scour users met on 24th April to discuss the future of the Geelong scour. I’m pleased to report that the outcome was positive, with a plan to ensure the continuing operation of the scour in support of Australian specialty & coloured fibre producers.
Now, back to our regular program…
At first glance these socks appear pretty plain, but if you look a little closer you will see that they’re making a mockery of you.
Mockery Socks, free pattern download now available from Live 2 Knit or Ravelry.
We interrupt our regular programming for an important news annoucement.
The CSIRO is planning to close their scour facility at Geelong at the end of June 2008, it’s the only one of its kind operating in Australia that will take small lots of fibre & the only scour to take Cashmere, Mohair, Alpaca and natural coloured wool.
If the CSIRO is allowed to close this facility, it will effectively stop small farmers from having their yarn processed in Australia, three small spinning mills in Victoria will be forced to close and no one in Australia will ever again be able to try to establish their own brand of Australian made wool or garments without a huge and risky capital investment.
It is too expensive to consider sending small amounts of fibre overseas and who would want to when it would mean losing an Australian made product.
Anyone who is concerned is urged to contact politicians regardless of party, write to the papers - indeed anything to bring attention to this issue. For more information go to http://natural-
Iridescence - a play of light and colour, subtly shifting and changing in complexity and depth, giving the illusion of movement… life…
I’m clawing my way back through the black hole that’s managed to suck the majority of February & all of March away, luckily I was knitting at the time it hoovered me up, so I was able to finish a pair of socks & start another before I realised I’d been MIA for almost two months!
Pattern: Drache - my own design
Needles: 2.5mm circs
Yarn: 1 skein of Live 2 Knit Olivia - Elven colourway
Started: January 2008
Completed: Late March 2008
The timewarp must have warped my mind too ’cause I’m totally into the whole socks on 2 circs thing, at least for toe ups, I haven’t attempted the other way yet…
I’ve been working with a new heel construction, it’s a universal toe up/top down short row/flap heel combo, kinda like this, this & this, there are no fiddly wraps or stitches to pick up - I think I’m in love.
Pattern: Pink Champagne - by Jennie Pakula as featured in YARN magazine issue 9 (March 2008)
Needles: 4mm circs
Yarn: 3 skeins of Live 2 Knit Bette - Vivid colourway
I’ve started a sock, toe up, 2 circs, Turkish Cast On, I have to admit, I don’t hate it, I don’t love it either and will probably return to my beloved DPN’s, but I can definitely see the attraction.
I’ve been thinking about the future direction of Live 2 Knit a lot in the last few weeks, I’m torn by what I want and where I think I should be heading…
I’ve been pondering over all my resources and the possible release of a new collection of colourways that may, or may not look something like this:
I feel some inspiration coming on…
I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing me complaining about how little time I have to knit these days, hell, I am, so I’m trying to re-organise myself so I manage to sneak a few rows in a day, at the very least, mostly the time is stolen from my lunch hour, last week I had to go to the bank and because it was such a lovely day and the bank is only about 3km away, I decided I would walk, but I really wanted to fit some knitting in as well, so I knit my sock, on DPN’s, while I walked - I think I’ve just taken one step closer to being that crazy knitting lady everyone talks about.
So what have I been knitting, well swatches mostly.
Usually when I swatch I knit something up, then rip it out & swatch something else, rip that & try again, rip and … well you get the idea, so I rarely have anything to show for all that stolen knitting time, but I’ve decided that I should keep all my swatches from now on, at least for blog fodder & possibly future inspiration.
The blog has been pretty quiet lately, though I do pop into Raverly every now if you want to say Hi.
Live 2 Knit has been keeping me very busy, almost too busy!
Here’s my ‘To Dye’ list as it currently stands, in no particular order:
36 x Elven
17 x Fig
2 x Semi-solid Fig co-ordinate
11 x Tutti Fruity
6 x Choc Cherry
14 x Lilly Pilly
22 x Alchemy
2 x Royal
2 x First Light
5 x Commando
11 x Spring
11 x Silver
3 x Wine
9 x Smoke
1 x Maple
1 x Peacock
That’s 153 skeins of yarn in 16 different colourways that need to be wound, soaked, dyed, steamed, washed, dryed, re-wound, labelled & posted!
Any chance someone wants to sponsor me so I can quit my day job & dye full time, or better yet - know of a handsome Sugar Daddy, who knits, that will set me up in my own state of the art dye studio?
Plus I’ve got some drool worthy new yarns which I will be adding to the store soon, think Alpaca & a spicy new sock yarn!
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