A flying visit

This time last week I was rushing around Wellington with Mum and Dad and Willie - a brief burst in my old city, sandwiched between my Christmas with the in-laws in Taranaki and my summer break in Whakatane. We all stayed on upper Cuba St, which was fantastic! We never had to walk far to get coffee, and it was really nostalgic being in that part of town.

Our one full day in Wellington was a very busy one, beginning with a cafe breakfast, shopping for fabric and second-hand clothes and yarn, a gallery visit after lunch, and (after a much-needed nap back at the hotel) a lovely dinner with the four of us and my old friend Rowan.

As always, Dad took plenty of photos...

Me and Mum at Midnight Espresso

On our way to the City Gallery (with bonus pigeon)

Part of the swatch collection at Holland Road Yarn Co.

Visiting the Holland Road yarn shop on Willis St was a major highlight for Mum and me, as we don't often get to see such a great collection of yarn in real life. I'm a happy online yarn shopper, but it really was great to be able to compare colours and textures in the shop!

I eventually decided on a skein of Madelinetosh DK in 'Button Jar Blue' for a hat I'm in the process of designing, some Knitsch Sock in 'Sweet Pea' which I'll combine with 'Silver Lining' from my stash for some stranded mittens, and coordinating colours of Zealana Kiwi 4ply for some stranded mitts... or possibly another hat. I also made mental notes of other lovely yarns that I want to try later (honourable mention: Quince & Co Piper in 'Austin', a lovely auburn laceweight).

My new treasures!

The fabric above is from The Fabric Store, both woven linen-blends. Once again, I plan to commandeer Mum's sewing machine and make some clothes while I'm in Whakatane. I've started making a Wiksten Tank using less-precious cotton fabric from my stash, after enlarging the pattern one extra size beyond the largest included size. If that turns out well (fingers crossed), I'll make another out of my new grey-and-silver linen. The black lightweight linen will probably become a Fen tee.

My grand plan for the holiday is to make lots of sewing and knitting progress, in between beach and lake visits. :)

New patterns: Rose Jam

Some of you may have gathered I have a bit of a thing for roses. I like to look at them, smell them, and for good measure, eat them! Rosewater and rose jam are lovely in desserts and baking, and fun to experiment with. My favourite combos are quince jam made with rosewater (recipe here), and rose jam on scones with whipped cream. :)

It was only a matter of time before I came up with a rosy knitting pattern, and in fact I've made two: the Rose Jam Hat and matching Rose Jam Mitts.

The stitch pattern is inspired by rose petals, which sometimes have a very sweet heart-shape in some old-fashioned and wild varieties. Like so:

Rosa moyesii, at Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens

Hat features:

• all-over mini-cable texture inspired by rose petals
• the petals flow smoothly out of the ribbing and up to the crown 
• a one-skein project (128-160 yards of worsted-weight yarn)
• suitable for solid or semi-solid colourways
• two adult sizes, photos show larger size  
• both charted and written instructions. 

 Mitts features:

• all-over mini-cable texture inspired by rose petals
• the thumb gusset emerges naturally from the stitch pattern
• a one-skein project (140 yards of worsted-weight yarn)
• suitable for solid or semi-solid colourways 
• one size, to fit 7-8" palm circumference
• both charted and written instructions. 

The 2-stitch cables in the hat and mitts can easily be knit without a cable needle, making these quite straightforward projects for an intermediate-level knitter. I've included a guide in each pattern based on this excellent method.

The yarn I used for my hat and mitts is the famously-squishable Malabrigo Rios, in the semi-solid colour 'Ravelry Red'.

The Rose Jam Hat and Mitts are available as separate patterns, or together.

Ravelry links: Rose Jam Hat and Rose Jam Mitts, and the ebook Rose Jam.
Loveknitting links: Rose Jam Hat and Rose Jam Mitts.

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The little white flowers in some of the photos above are from Mum and Dad's Viburnum opulus, known to us as the 'Snowball Tree'. After our Rose Jam photoshoot, Dad took photos of me messing about and making the tree 'snow'. And then he made an animated gif. ;)

A rainbow of lace

Well, my Indie Gift-A-Long knitting is off to a slow start. I somehow sprained my right index finger (don't worry, it's nearly better now!), so I've had a frustrating week of trying not to knit or use my laptop too much.

One slight silver lining was that I finally found time to watch some Craftsy class videos. I'm now in the middle of Miriam Felton's 'Lace Shawl Design' class, and I'm getting some new insights into how lace works. I'm looking forward to the 'fixing mistakes' video, a subject dear to my heart! Here's a Craftsy affiliate link to the class if you're interested: Lace Shawl Design

I clearly have lace on the brain, because I soon found myself browsing through lace patterns on Ravelry. Here's a selection, all by fellow GAL designers - some are more complex, some more simple, most are knitted, one is crocheted, some have texture, some have beads. There were so many that caught my eye, I started narrowing them down by colour, and a rainbow happened...

Tiong Bahru by Åsa Tricosa, photo by Åsa Söderman

Hugs and Stitches by Yuliya Tkacheva

Afterglow by Diana Rozenshteyn

Laura's Leaves by Emily K Williams

Lichen Mists by Ruth Garcia-Alcantud

Midnight in Sydney by Meg Gadsbey

When The Leaves Fall by Lily Go

And for one final bit of lace, check out this amazing yarn-bombed tree! It's part of Yarn Corner's series of tree-cosies in Melbourne's City Square, all with a Christmas theme. The others were cool, but this one really wowed me, especially since I don't see much knitted lace yarnbombing around. The red and green striped under-layer sets off the lovely lace patterns beautifully. <3

The Gift-A-Long is here!

The annual Indie Design Gift-A-Long has begun! Come and join us in the Ravelry group for a knitting/crocheting party, and get some handmade gifts sorted. To kick things off, the participating designers (all 335 of us) are having a 25%-off sale on some of our designs. The sale lasts until Friday 27th of November, but the Gift-A-Long runs until the end of the year with games and prizes to be won.

My on-sale patterns are collected here!

For my first Gift-A-Long post, I'd like to highlight a few patterns by fellow Downunder designers. I can vouch for the Scott Base Socks as an excellent and practical sock pattern, as I made a pair for myself last year. :)

The following beauties are all by NZ or Australian designers, and all are in the 25%-off sale this week. Click the links to see more.

Nardoo by Ambah O'Brien

 

Scott Base - Toe Up by Sarah Ronchetti

Awhitu by Kelly Brooker, photo © Briony Singleton

Koru by Libby Jonson

Spirit of Ahuriri by Brenda Green

Daybreak by Nim Teasdale

New pattern: Deco City

I'm back in Melbourne, and hiding indoors from the heat! A mini-heatwave has arrived to welcome me back. It always takes me a little while to readjust to the time difference too, even though it's only two hours.

One good thing about being back from holiday (other than hanging out with Willie and Ju again) is finally getting my hands on Pom Pom Quarterly's Winter issue and seeing my name in print for the first time as a designer. It's a pretty amazing feeling!

My shawl is called 'Deco City' after New Zealand's capital of Art Deco, Napier. My newly-wed brother lives there with his family, and it's a cool place to visit! I particularly love the art gallery by the waterfront:

Photo by Dad

Deco City is a crescent-shaped shawl with an all-over lace pattern inspired by Art Deco design. It's quite simple to knit, with purled ‘rest’ rows on every wrong-side row and stitch markers to indicate where the middle section begins and ends.

Features:

• curved crescent shape with elegant drape
• all-over geometric lace pattern
• top-down construction, beginning with a garter tab cast-on
• two sizes, photos show larger size
• requires 318 - 477 yards of sport-weight yarn
• suitable for solid or semi-solid colourways
• written pattern only (for greater simplicity in this case)

The lovely deep blue yarn I used is Road to China Light from The Fibre Company, a very soft blend of baby alpaca, silk, cashmere, and camel. I used three skeins for the larger size, but for the smaller you only need two.

Photo by Pom Pom Quarterly

You can buy a digital copy of the magazine (and see all the other designs!)
on Ravelry or on Pom Pom Quarterly's site, and you can buy a print copy directly from Pom Pom or from their retailers.

Craft holiday

My stay in Whakatane is drawing to an end, and on Saturday I'll be flying back to Melbourne. As always, I've done a lot of crafting while hanging out with Mum & Dad, sitting in my favourite knitting spot in the sun-room or bent over the sewing machine.

As part of my getting-ready-for-summer project, I sewed a couple of lightweight cotton skirts. I used the Purl Bee's tutorial Gathered Skirt for All Ages, and adapted it for a longer length and no pockets. My skirts are super comfy to wear, and were quite straightforward to make for a semi-beginner like me. Each one took me two days of tinkering. :)

I also want to finish sewing my ill-fated silk cowl, which will hopefully work out this time around! 

Last week I finished knitting a hat-and-mitts set, tweaked their patterns, and had a photoshoot with Dad behind the camera (which is always fun). I'm planning to release the patterns in December, so I don't want to give too much away just yet. Here's a tiny peek...

Finally, here are a few photos from Mum and Dad's garden. Yesterday I played around with Dad's smaller camera - it's never hard to find interesting things to photograph in a garden...

A rose called 'Greensleeves'

A fern frond unfurling

Plenty of thyme

Dyeing with eucalyptus II

We had a wonderful time in Napier! The food was amazing, the weather was pleasant, and the hotel was great. And so was the main event! Congrats Jeff and Colleen, it was a lovely wedding. I'm so glad Willie and I were able to be there. <3

The day after the wedding, hordes of friends and family descended on the Grays' place for lunch. The best part for me was watching their (very bouncy) dog play with their three goats. We've been hassling Jeff to take a video to put online, because it's ridiculously entertaining...

Between the goat paddock and the beehives were some eucalyptus trees with blue-green leaves. I've been on the lookout for some accessible blue-green eucalypts to dye fabric with, ever since I read in India Flint's Eco Colour that these are the ones which give orange or red dye. I asked nicely, and picked a few good-sized twigs to experiment with back in Whakatane.

On Tuesday I had a go at Flint's 'eco-print' technique, scattering pieces of eucalyptus twigs between the folds of a plain silk scarf, rolling it around a stick, and tying the bundle tightly with string.

I tossed the bundle and some leftover leaves and twigs into a pot with enough water to cover it all, and boiled it all for 45 minutes. Then the hard part began - waiting until the next day to unroll the bundle and see what colours I had!

And... it worked! The scarf has areas of apricot-orange where the leaves were pressed tightly against the fabric, and paler areas in between. I didn't achieve strongly defined leaf prints, but I'm happy with my first attempt. I imagine tighter rolling and tying of the bundle would produce clearer prints.

If you click and enlarge this last photo, you can see stripes in the upper left corner from the string around the bundle. Pretty cool! It's amazing what just leaves + fabric + water + heat can do.