We’re in the home stretch, people! I’ve got fourteen hours until Veronica picks me up to head to the Easter Show headquarters. (Minus time for sleep, hygiene, and an hour’s worth of faffing about on the Internet tomorrow morning.) Both sleeves are now attached and super-puffy. I’ve done two of the four cat faces. (A sneak peek you see before you.) So tomorrow I’ve just got to do the other two faces, and then work out what I’m doing for the button situation. Plenty of time, right?
Category: Crafts
Craft projects of mine
-
Little Kitty Faces
-
ARGH.
Seven staff absences in five days. This is getting ridiculous. Anybody want to work in a knitting shop? (I’m so looking forward to my vacation. Only one more week…)
-
Square!
Square knitting needles and crochet hooks. That’s so weird. They claim they’re way easier on your hands and arms and that they produce extremely uniform tension. I’d be interested in testing thing. (Link courtesy of not martha.)
-
Puffy Sleeve!
One sewn in, one to go. It’s a wonder I even had the energy. What a week! In three days, we’ve had FIVE staff absences in the shop. Basically, this means yours truly (aka The Go-To Girl) was on her feet and serving customers non-stop. Normally this would’ve provoked a massive rant, but I’ve actually had nothing but really nice people. We had an American tourist who basically hung out with me for two hours today. On her vacation! Two hours! So at least the days have gone by quickly. And then I actually spent two hours tonight of my precious knitting time staying late to parcel out the Knit Picks (because I know y’all are itching for them). Now that’s dedication. Anyway, one side of the cardigan is now complete except for the kitty faces. The sleeve wasn’t too difficult to sew in, but as I was rounding the back of the shoulder I let fly with a string of obscenities. There, STARING ME IN THE FACE, were three random purl stitches interrupting my lovely blank canvas of stockinette. What the–? Did I go momentarily insane? I continued sewing in the sleeve while meditating on my options. I could chalk it up to an Amish mistake and just hope no one notices… or I could deal with it. The Snook was surprised to see me preparing for surgery. “You don’t understand,” I said through gritted teeth. “My Knitting Nemesis is also entering the competition, and I WILL NOT STAND to have her see such a glaring error on my piece.” So before I could talk myself out of it, I snipped. I snipped and I unravelled and I made a great big hole in the jumper I’ve been killing myself to knit for the past month. Then I picked up the stitches with some DPNs and began the painstaking process of grafting the stitches back together. (I should mention again that this is black 4-ply. Somewhere my optometrist is moaning in his sleep.) I cursed and I stressed and I had to make, like, three false starts, but I got there in the end. Once it’s pressed, you won’t notice a thing. And I’ll be able to sleep at night. Hey, isn’t that a nice puffy sleeve? -
KNIT PICKS ARE HERE!
You heard it here first: THE KNIT PICKS ARE HERE! I’m unpacking the box at this very second. We’ve also got megatons of Debbie Bliss, including the Pure Silk (which is absolutely divine) and lots of Cashmerino in multiple thicknesses.
-
Knitting Article
I just discovered that I’m quoted in this article about knitting entitled “Street art goes soft.” I think I remember giving the interview a while ago. (It gets hard to keep track of all my media appearances, dahlings.) She got one thing wrong though – we never had anyone from Quitline at the Knit & Quit classes. We tried, but apparently they have ZERO budget to support anything other than the phone lines.
-
Me on the Chaser
Dude, that was so fun! Well, yeah, I kinda got stuck with a random co-host. I turned up and told the producer that I was the last minute fill-in for the 7 o’clock slot, and she was like, “Oh, so’s this guy. Do you guys each want to do half an hour or…” And I was like, “Whatever.” I realized pretty quickly that on my own, I wasn’t going to be doing much other than answering the phone. So I figured I’d have him to do that. (Unfortunately he apparently didn’t tell me about most of your messages! Sorry about that.) But in spite of it, I actually had a really great time. The producer chick was really nice and we sorta teamed up. (She’s a pretty good knitter, too.) I had been pretty anxious on the way over there – Would I look fat? Would people think I was boring? – but I found that I got comfortable really quickly. What did you guys think? I haven’t seen any of it yet, but it felt pretty good. All of the other people I’d seen kinda just sat there and did nothing, or else they wore wacky costumes and hula-hooped. I just wanted to be different without being too over-the-top. I hope at least it amused you.That said – I booked in for another slot! I’m going to be on Saturday morning from 8am-9am Sydney time. By my reckoning, that will be about 5:00pm on Friday Indiana time, so all the Americans should be able to tune in! The producer loved the idea of having a knit-in, so any knitters that want to come along, let me know.
PS – Did you guys see the Snook? He apparently walked behind as we were winding down. And then, of course, he and I pulled a total “bonehead” by sticking out our tongues as we left…
-
No Knit Sherlock!
Okay, I’d just like to say that No Knit Sherlock! is quite possibly the best knitting blog title I’ve ever seen.
-
Weekend Update
Well, that was fun. We didn’t get much trip preparation done, but thanks to the Snook my birthday weekend was one to remember. It started Saturday morning with a trip to Bills in Surry Hills for breakfast. We met up with Fiona (and her Mystery Visitor) for scrambled eggs and coffee in the sunshine. Afterwards I headed to Glebe for my first appointment with my new stylist, Desiree at Partners Hair Workshop. She was fantastic! I’m used to salon visits taking forever, but Desiree had me out the door in under ninety minutes. (And that’s including foils, cut, and blow dry!) Back at home, the Snook was preparing for my birthday barbecue… right before the heavens burst. So the festivities were all indoor. But no matter; we had Wii! Many, many games of tennis, fishing, cow racing, and boxing ensued. We also had a veritable cadre of bloggers amongst the guests, including Amy, Kenya, Bex, Helen, Andrew, and Major. We had salads, chicken, fish, SO. MUCH. CHEESE., chips, bread and truffle butter, and really just everything lovely. The Snook made a rich low-carb chocolate cake and Andrew countered with some decidedly high-carb (but sooo worth it!) fancy cupcakes. As you might imagine, the Snook and I spent most of Sunday just in recovery mode. We had lunch in Chinatown with his mother and sister, but otherwise I spent the day working on my cardy. The other puffy sleeve is now finished! I’ve moved on to the embroidery, as you can see here. I’ve got til Saturday to put it all together and finish it off. I think I’m actually gonna make it! -
Did somebody say… PUFFY SLEEVE?
It appears that my meticulous calculations have worked! The first puffy sleeve is finished and it’s just about as perfect as I could’ve hoped for. I need to give both pieces a good ironing before I sew it in, but I’m 95% sure this pattern is a keeper. You can see how it looks on my arm here. Now I just need to knit another one and finish the thing off! Easy peasy.
And that? That’s the amazing dinner the Snook cooked me tonight. (Vegetarians LOOK AWAY NOW.) It was a low-carb carnivore’s feast. Starting from the bottom, there’s a bed of mashed cauliflower surrounding a Scotch fillet steak wrapped in bacon, with fried duck’s liver on top. And what’s that funny white golf-ball-thingy? Oh, it’s truffle butter. (Seriously, I could eat a bowl of that stuff.) The sauce is a reduction of sherry and homemade veal stock, and there’s a side of green beans amandine. We washed it down with a few glasses of an excellent Australian red.
You know, so far my 30’s really don’t suck!
