Hey Red

Sometimes I think I spend more time on the computer looking for patterns than I do actually knitting them! I have printed out so many recently that I have had to put them in folders and I just love looking over them.

One autumn day I spotted this cute pattern. I love top-down circular needle knits because of their beautiful fitted & seamless shape but haven't really tackled many of them. After a trip to the local yarn store and the discovery of Patons Smoothie DK in red/orange/purple and a new 3.75mm circular needle, I began.

I love the colour and how quickly it came together; amazing! Here's some pics of the progress.

unfinished sleeve

back

All finished now after one adjustment to the pattern (I made little cap sleeves instead of longer ones) and I am very happy with the result. A great little top for the start of the warm weather. Yay, bring on summer I say!

Princess poncho

After spotting a great pattern on the Lion brand site and acquiring some rather rare cream coloured Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick yarn here in Australia, I decided to make my daughter her very own "Fairy Tale Poncho." It was so quick to knit up on the 8 mm needles and grew before my very eyes! Unfortunately I required a little bit more yarn than was suggested in the pattern (1 ball) and I had to source some from a business called American Yarns here in Brisbane. Lion Brand wouldn't ship overseas (how silly is that!) which delayed the whole process for a few weeks.

I tried crocheting the border in a pink (favoured princess colour!) similar weight yarn but wasn't happy with the rather chunky result so I undid it and tried again with an aqua blue mohair blend yarn from my stash. Much better! I finished it with a twisted tab and a smooth timber button and voila, a very happy, very warm princess!

Beginning

I seem to have strange ancestral yearnings to do things at certain times of the year. I always have to be making something for someone at Christmas no matter how crazy the very idea of that is with 5 kids finishing school at the end of November and a beach holiday thrown in there as well! Then as soon as all festivities are over I then get this strange desire to knit and get prepared for the winter. Nuts I know! One, this is Australia and in January it is 35 + degrees Celsius outside and two, it's really only cold for about a month or two in July/August! Nevertheless, there it is, something deep inside telling me to get things ready. (I blame it on my Anglo Saxon origins!)

So last Christmas I made 4 little fairy outfits for my daughter and three nieces from McCall's 3365 pattern with an old gold satin sheet and purple and coloured star tulle. They turned out great and were worn by the happy foursome on Christmas Day.

Straight after they were done and we had hardly unpacked from our visit to the Central Coast I launched into a beautiful knitting pattern for M from Paton's Adventure Knits which is about 15 years old. It was a great little tunic with lots of bobbles. Bobbles are one of those things that you either love or hate. I love them, so this was just what I was looking for in a warm woolly jumper for a trip to the USA for my 3 year old. I found the Basics 8 ply 100% Australian wool at Spotlight and it knitted up quickly and beautifully.