Socks, spinning and FOs

The first sticker I have ever put on my car in my entire life. But I couldn’t resist. 🙂 
Apologies in advance for the rushed photos this week. Also WordPress seems to be deleting people from my feed. 😡 I will find you again!

Our perfect Queensland Autumn continues. The zygos are flowering

Frogzilla the gigantic tree frog has taken to hiding from the antechinus in the watering can.

The cats’ heated bed came out of storage. It was much appreciated.

In related news, the stash has been expanding proportionately to the gradual drop in daytime temperatures here in the Southern Hemisphere. 
I have never held myself back from casting on a new pattern or having countless WIPs. There is too much joy in riding that first inspirational wave of creativity like a body surfer to stifle it. But lately I’ve noticed that nothing much was getting finished this year, and nineteen projects were languishing in project bags. This in itself didn’t bother me, but the fact almost all my good needles and large quantities of lovely yarn were tied up did. So with M’s assistance, I frogged fourteen projects. It felt really good. 🙂 And now with the extra yarn freed up, my stash is practically exploding out of the train! Joy!
I have been charging through the socks to make way for new skeins, a pair for me in my favourite Lana Grossa Meilenweit India, 2.5mm needles, 60 stitches…

Another pair of boot socks for M in Drops Big Fabel…5mm needles, 40 stitches

And a squishy pair for Mum for Mothers Day in Berocco Vintage (can’t remember needle size)

Then I cast on these in Lana Grossa Meilenweit Solo Cotone, my first pair of cotton socks, 3mm needles, 52 stitches. The jury is still out, they feel a bit floppy to me, but we’ll see.


All of these socks have Fish Lips Kiss Heels. I have lately heard people complain about this heel, saying it pops off? I have to say that’s never happened to me, nor anyone I’ve gifted it to. Still my favourite heel by far. Last year I knit a pair of socks with one fish lips kiss heel and one traditional heel flap in a Bendigo Woollen Mills sock yarn. They looked like this:

And here’s how they look a year later after fairly heavy wear and constant machine washing (cold):

There is no apparent difference in the wear, if anything the fish lips is wearing slightly better. I won’t be giving it up anytime soon. 🙂
I’m doing a few blankets at the moment for Angel Blankets, who donate blankets to hospitals for stillborn or miscarried babies that can be held (14-23 weeks). The tiny-ness is a bit heart wrenching. I’ll be adding some pretty borders to these.

Some more crochet cable mitts. I do enjoy crochet cabling. I think a fisherman sweater is forming in the back of my mind.

M also requested a khaki jumper (shock!) and it seemed a good way to clear some yarn, 2000m of it to be exact. A simple crochet pattern by Melissa Leapman was chosen, and only a few days later, it was finished. I would NEVER have picked this for him, but he loves it. You just can never tell, hey. 

I’ve already started another for him. 

Yes, as requested that is camo yarn. No, I have no comment on that. Whatever makes him happy. 🙂
My Year of William Morris paused as I hurt my back and couldn’t sit at the tapestry stand (I’m pretty sure it was actually sitting at the tapestry stand that hurt my back in the first place) but it is nearly healed now and I’ll be back into it. In the meantime, my Auntie did bring me a lovely related gift on her recent trip up here from Adelaide.

Christmas Village Mark II is progressing nicely. Four buildings so far and the fifth and sixth underway. 🙂

And spinning…something about the cooler weather always makes me break out the wheel! I don’t know what this fibre is, I am guessing merino. It is part of a large bag of fleece my mother-in-law rescued from an op shop where it was being thrown out. It is sooooooo soft and floofy! I’ve never spun anything so light and fine before, and I’m very happy with it. Two ply laceweight, 220 metres. 

Then some rainbow something from the same stash, not as floofy and a bit old and felted, but I pressed on regardless. Another couple of hundred metres in 2 ply.

Then some chocolatey Corriedale. I like this one the best. 🙂 This came out a sportweight as a 2 ply. I have a couple of kilos of this fleece to process, so plenty for a jumper or three. I’ve only ever made one jumper from yarn I spun, and it was a plain cardy from our old alpaca, Patch. I might do something fancy with cables this time.

Of the other five current WIPs, this is my favourite, Ilvy, which I just started:

Crocheting pure linen thread is hard on the hands, but I love the result, so rustic. Poppy made me the little cedar stand for the reel of linen. 🙂
Hopefully I can now resume normal broadcasting and return to some sort of blogging rhythm after the erraticness of the last few weeks. Next week I turn the big 4-0, so a fresh start, a new decade and soooo many things to look forward to! 🙂 Or I’ll just let myself go completely, I haven’t decided yet.