six and a half stitches

SOCK PORN

It's not just about length or width, it's about much more than that. Miss Cari is an expert - it's about hugging, and turning, and colour and she knows the ins and outs of what makes a sock make a woman gasp and shudder. 2 months almost to the day, my birthday socks arrived from the sock queen herself.

They are luscious in their pink and purpleness, their softness, their fit, and most importantly, their undeniable comfort and warmth given my fondness for shivering at the moment.

Alongside the socks was (notice the use of past tense) dark chocolate. Dark chocolate with Ginger. But let's look at those colours again. Could she have got it any more right for me? And the perfect way to wear pink socks is to curl up on the sofa with a fresh Latte, and eat chocolate with some finger friendly knitting and a cat or two purring away by your side. I thank you sock queen for your generosity and ultimate coolness and your amazing new red and pink variegated hair.

While we're on a pink sharing moment, I know I said there would be no more bunnies, but hell, I lied. Another one popped up.

Pink Merry is made from a slightly felted pink knit, with a pink floral contrast fabric and two clear button eyes.

She likes marshmallows melted in hot chocolate, making daisy chains, and her new accessory the Little Black Tag wich makes her now most officially a Six And A Half Stitches rabbit.

YELLOW POLKA DOTTED BUNNIES

No chocolate, just bunny biscuits.

It seems I overdid my Yoga class last week, because my hands and arms ache. Combined with overdoing the knitting and sewing recently, my fingers also now ache. I have worked out what is causing the fingers to ache - the stitch markers on Clapotis. So to ensure my complete acceptance into martyrdom, I am continuing with Clapotis manically in an attempt to be done with it finally, and then my fingers can heal. But I'm taking it slowly, so, to be fair to you all, there wont be much knitting posting going on around here for the next few weeks.

Instead, I thought you'd all like to get to know my life a little more. I am quite consciously aware of how little I speak about my personal life on here. Partly that's me, I keep myself to myself, but partly it's because often I get worried I'll loose readers if I suddenly turn into a mummy blog. But then I also think, that it's good for you to know that just as you think you know me, I'll come up with something which will suprise you.

So in the interests of fairness, here's a snapshot of my weekend.

If you're a female with a slightly larger than model like proportions, and it's cold, and a touch windy, wearing a cobalt blue scrap of silky material to the horse races is not your wisest choice. I say this to the woman standing at the traffic lights about to cross a major road, and exposing her behind to everyone. Elegant wasn't exactly her look today. And cobalt blue really wasn't her colour.

Similarly, to the 14 year old size 16 girl wearing a pleated denim micro mini - you're not hot. Trust me.

We bought for Max, at the beginning of last year, a Berchet BabyTOO trike thing that has every conceivable toddler gadget on it. It's been fantastic and it looks fantastic and I can't stress how fantastic this thing is in our lives. If we were ever in doubt, on any given day, whether Max would throw a tantrum, anywhere, taking him somewhere in the trike would be a guaranteed winner. We had decided the time was right for learning to use the pedals, however Max has had other ideas. He decided to put them into practise this weekend, spurred on by the 300 spare trikes we have accumulated in our back garden from trips down lane ways and second hand stores.

Max likes to push himself along using his feet. Which is not unusual, and he's been doing it for ages around the back garden, but somewhere along the line he's discovered the exhilirating freedom that moving independantly from mum and dad can bring while out in public, and he wants more of it. This isn't just the heady intoxication of being able to walk - it's the desire to be free, and go somewhere, anywhere, fast. We cannot touch the trike. We cannot offer guidance, or assistance. We can merely stand back and watch as our child careers down the high street at a snails pace taking up the entire footpath. He is a child on a mission. Which is kind of a scary moment in our lives. A crazed screaming toddler strapped securely into a stroller is one thing. A crazed screaming toddler in charge of a vehicle on a crowded street is an entirely different scenario, and will no doubt require a new look of deserved perserverance to be put upon my face to gain as much sympathy from passing pedestrians as possible.

Max has always been incredibly independant. For many a month, I have worried anxiously that his independance was borne from some lack of motherly input into his life and that I created such an independant child because I didn't pay him enough attention. It's not been until my social worker who has been helping me with PND stepped in and said he'd be a very different sort of independant child if that was the case, that I finally relaxed and trusted that my child is confident and that should be a credit to me, not the opposite. We've always been very keen to foster an environment where Max can explore without limits, with our trust and in a secure environment, and in which he knows he can ask for help, get encouragement and be encouraged, and as a result he's an amazingly creative, inquisitive fearless child. Max has no concept of 'I couldn't do that...' and that is wonderful for us. It's a great skill to have as a child.

But when we're walking down crowded high streets at a snails pace while Max drags his trike around between his legs screaming wildly if we get anywhere near the handle bars, it's all I can do to muster enough strength to let him without loosing it myself, and I now secretly plan to take the stroller with the iron clad strapping device on it wherever we go. At least then I can guarantee we will get where we're going.

IN WHICH IT TAKES 5 ATTEMPTS TO REALISE THE TRUTH

The funny thing about pregnancy is that it creeps up on you. One minute you're being told someone's pregnant, and the next, bam! they're ready to drop and even though you know exactly when they're due, you've lost the plot a bit and you realise you're a little behind the eight ball on all the fab things you were going to get them, make them, do for them. So it comes, that one of my friends is ready. She's primed. She's done it before, she knows what's happening. But the cute little bub ensemble I had planned, isn't exactly as primed.

I knew what I was going to do, I had the wool, got it ages ago, and the pattern is one which has been sitting around for quite a while, I just hadn't got it started. So last night, I figured I'd start. I dug the wool out, I cast on. I knit about an inch. I looked at it, with furrowed brow, and I frogged it. I cast on again. I knit about an inch, and I frogged again. Panic was starting to set in, because I had been to the LYS yesterday, and I knew how barren the shelves were and that I had no other options really waiting.

The wool choice was not looking so good knit up.

What the picture isn't conveying, is that the variegated yarn was siding into two panels of gold and purple, and looking like a remnant from some hippy rainforest poster. I had such high hopes for this wool, and this colourway, but with this particular item, it just wasn't working. Not suprisingly, having thought about this for a good few months, I was reluctant to give up at frogging twice, so I cast back on and knit again, this time to 2 inches before completely abandoning it. I even tried a slab of garter stitch for it, and that wasn't really working.

Back to the stash boxes, and I figured I could use some Debbie Bliss cotton, and do a striped red and white version. I have now learnt red and white stripes don't look so good over moss stitch. I frogged again (if you're counting, that's 4 attempts so far).

Back to the stash box.

I've had a few balls of wool - actually I like Cari's description of large wound balls as 'cakes' - that I got while in Melbourne last year. They've been sitting, originally intended for specific projects, but now deemed for other uses, in boxes and on shelves where I can oggle them, for a long time. I have this fear of using really nice yarn, in case the item doesn't do the yarn justice, or that I don't use it appropriately, or that its just too good for the recipient. Yeah, i can be a right bitch and very possessive of glittering colourful things.

Babies clothes kind of fall into a hazy category of appropriateness. There are some babies I make for which just damn well deserve something nice. And there are those I make for which, really, I shouldn't go to the bother of making for, but I do, and I always feel I've cheated myself. It's not that I don't want to give, but that I know how wonderful it felt to use a type of wool, or how wonderful I think the end product has turned out to be. And secretly, I think, damn, maybe I should keep this one for my next child....

So it was reluctantly that I picked up the bluey green wool I made the rabbit from a few weeks ago, and teamed it with a citrus green Jo Sharp wool which had been earmarked for a jumper for Max, but will now become baby clothes for the lady whose dropping is imminent.

The two wools are being used together to form a thick wool which is what the pattern really calls for. It's quite green, but with very subtle colour variations. The pattern is Red Set Go by Monkeysuits. Did I just write an entire post about...nothing? The men have gone for a Father and Son weekend where they will be fed copious amounts by their mother so I am without screaming child and screaming husband and now I'm also devoid of conversation and wondering who I will talk to for the next 28 hours...

But just think how much knitting I will get done, and sewing, and coffees in cafes, and maybe even lunch, and I can read the paper....must sit down, feeling dizzy.

MORNING SUNSHINE

I've been playing around with Orisinal's Morning Sunshine site all morning because it is just so unbelieveably gorgeous. I can't get stills from it, so just go and see for yourself. And pick some flowers for someone while you're at it.

WE GOTTON FRENZIED

And so it began. That she cast on all 365 stitches, and recounted them to be sure, and did swear that she had a larger circular needle in size 3.5, and 4mm, but didn't, and got to reading at least the first 5 lines of the pattern. For she is not one to covert reading a pattern in entirity, for that would loose the gloss of it all, and she would surely then know what she is doing, and be on her merry way. Nay, she liketh to make life difficult, and so only reads what she thinks she does need to read. Which is not necessarily what the pattern required her to read.

And she did work a few lines of Norsk Strikkedesign Page 106 - heremore to be called The Neverending Project (TNP), and it did take her all of an afternoon to do 5 rows, but she did keep going, and she was quite merry that she did not find fault all through those 5 rows. She did curse some more that she did not have longer bloody 4mm needles, but knows she may pick up her card of plastic and order her in some this week, because as you can see, furling leaves of knitting in fairaisle do not a merry knitter make. And at the fading of the sun of the day, she did breathe a sigh of relief that it had been started, and looked to the east for a new day, when she might be able to do another row.

And as the light did fade, and the lights of the evening did turn on, she picked up another project and continued forth. Her Clapotis II grows each day, but is starting to merrily bore her to tears, despite its absolute wonderous colourings. She is delighted by its softness, and wants to wear it hastily, but would surely sweat to death if she wore it now, so tries to be patient.

And when the colour does become too much, and the jangling sounds of stitch markers do annoy her, she returns to serendipity with a little aran sweater for her barn that also grows slowly, but is small enough to not bore her to tears, and is knit with much loved up motherness.

And so concludes the opening chapter of Norsk: Deceptions of Size. Join us as we journey together through this epic likely to last well into next year, and beyond.

MOD BUN

Last bunny for a little while I swear....Red felt and furnishing fabric by Cloth contrast. The belly fabric is actually patterned stone colours in an oval repeat pattern, but I couldn't get the light to work with me. The ears are the same 'stoney' fabric, just a different colourway.

WHAT BUNNIES DO BEST

It's that pattern, but my version of it. You see, you leave two bunnies alone in the house, and they do what bunnies do best, and now there's just going to be bunnies everywhere I tell ya.

La Bunny is made from wool felt and a Liberty print contrast fabric with little felt and button eyes. I love this pattern, so there's likely to be many more...and I love the felt fabric as well, which is part of a large box of it that arrived this week from Weir Dolls. The felt (100% wool) is fabulous, the colours are fabulous.

Also on my radar this week has been a large bag of assorted buttons - bought by the scoop and which I've had fun sifting through for eyes. Now I promise, the next post will be about knitting of an incredibly major, epic, kind and an update on other projects which don't seem to have made it on here recently but which have been steadily progressing along in the background.

WHEN THE CURTAINS RUSTLE

Hmmm. Strange things have been going on, and being ever the sneaky one, I decided to investigate.

It started with little things, a movement in the corner of my eye, a rustling behind curtains, and then strange shadows along the corridor.

And then this evening, as I was about to sit down to dinner, up popped two ears and two little beady eyes. "Hello!" it said gaily and giggled off around the corner. "Oh My!" said I, and quickly gave chase. I followed the giggles and heard toe thumping and more giggling from another room. My curiosity was peeked.

Suddenly the giggles stopped, and I came face to face with this little chap. He asked me to bend down, because he had something to whisper in my ear. So I gently lowered myself to his height, and he told me to close my eyes, and count to 5.

So I did.

And when I opened my eyes, there were two little bunny rabbits, one made from the softest Phildar Neige in an apple green with the cutest little wooden button eyes, and the other a turquoise murky Martas Yarn machine felted bunny with two little adorable button eyes.

Something caught my attention at the other end of the room, and when I looked back, they'd both disappeared...

WHILE THE CATS AWAY, THE MICE WILL SHOP

Well honestly, what would you have done in the same circumstances? The Husband goes off for a weekend, leaving me holding the baby toddler, Child Who Will Not Sleep, and the best thing for all was if I went shopping. And stuff we did find. Uhuh. We did indeed. We found fabrics:

Of which this represents about a quarter of what I actually came back with, a beautiful selection of vintage reels of threads in jewel colours and vintage buttons. And in preperation for the long drawn out weekend with The Child Who Will Not Sleep During The Day When Mummy Would Quite Like A Nap, I did some purchasing from the internet.

This beautiful felted brooch from Plain Mabel which is big, and soft, and will look fabulous against my new black coat. I am sure you all would have done exactly the same in the circumstances. Yes?

AHHHHH, SIGHS A BIG SIGH OF RELIEF

It is done. This collection of Noro Silk Garden and Marta's Charcoal Alpaca yarn has become something wearable. That only took, oohhhh, about that long, really? Are you sure? Yeah, it's been hanging around for a little while, but now it is finished and I can move onto something else. There's more photos in the photo album.