knittinginperth

Birthday Thank Yous

I just wanted to say many thanks to my wonderful family and friends for my  birthday gifts and to let you know that I appreciate them very much. Here is some of what I received.

Japanese knitting pattern book called Keito Dama No. 139 2008 from their lets knit series that she picked up when she was in Singapore recently, which has some very exquisite cable patterns.  Two beautiful sock bags.  Again thank you Ann for your thoughtfulness.

Now we all know my beautiful friend Nerise has such a wonderful sense of humour and please don't panic when you see this title like my husband did.  He walked into my office recently to ask me something and spotted this on my round table and asked me what this book was about in a quite worried tone and I had to reassure him that he had nothing to worry about and it was just good humour.  Again thank you Nerise for your thoughtfulness and laughter that you always provide me with.

Here is the gorgeous card with my favourite blue wren birds on it that Mum sent, so a big thank you hug Mum.

The last two weeks have been very busy with various things such as kids returning to school.  My youngest started pre-primary this year, so that means he is in school full time now.  My eldest started Grade two.  I'm very lucky as they both enjoy school and have lots of friends.  The already have received two birthday party invites for this month.

On Knitting Inspirations news we are are very excited to opened up our first seasonal sock and lace yarn clubs for sign-ups.  We are offering a delightful range of hand dyed yarns by Fleece Artist and Hand Maiden, which are some of my favourite yarns at present.  We have tried to make these clubs as flexible as possible, which means you don't have to sign-up for all shipments and no payments are due until one month prior to mailing of packages.  With the lace club you can choose your own colourways too.

On my needles I have the Knitspot Butternut lace scarf in Fleece Artist Cashlana and have complete two repeats.  Had to frog half a repeat a few days ago due to reading the chart wrong, which reminded me the importance of lifelines.  This is one of the wonderful yarns being offered in our lace club.  I'm in love with this yarn and the Rose colourway, which reminds me so much of my pretty pink roses at the front and I cannot wait to wear this.  Must schedule more daytime knitting.

Here is some silver beat that I harvested last week.  I'm waiting for cooler weather so I can spend more time in the garden and plant some Autumn vegies.

 

I just fried it with a small amount of olive oil, onion and pinch of salt.  DH enjoy it very much as he loves silver beat, unlike me, although I must say this was very nice.

If you haven't already heard Serendipity is hosting a raffle to help raise money for those affected by the Victorian bushfires, so visit the Australian Red Cross to make a donation and then visit her blog  for details on entering the raffle and to see all the amazing prizes donated.  Our hearts and thoughts go out to all of those affected by these fires.

Summer Holiday Round-up for 2009

Our summer holidays this year were split between two weeks at my parents farm between Mt Barker and Albany in the Great Southern and 4 nights in Dunsborough.  DH join us at the farm on the last weekend and then we drove across to Dunsborough on Monday via Manjimup and Nannup , which is always a nice picturesque drive.

I took lots of photos with my new camera.  I have just finished loading them up to my flickr account where you can view all of them.  Here are just a few special moments and places visited during our time away. 

While staying at the farm Mum and I took the boys to their usual favourite places such as the Pentland Alpaca farm at Denmark.

 

The Princess Royal Fortress and the Brig Amity sailing ship in Albany, which we enjoyed. 

 

We also went to the Denmark Dinosaur World halfway between Denmark and Walpole for the first time, which was very interesting.  We had a lovely lunch at the Nornalup Tea House (recommended in Delicious Magazine cafe/restaurant guide), which I highly recommend stopping off if you are in the area. 

In Dunsborough we stayed at Dunsborough Naturaliste Mews, which was very nice and comfortable.  From here we took some day trips to Busselton (where the DH and boys went on the water slides, ate Simmos homemade ice cream and swam at the beach), Margaret River Chocolate Factory (along with everyone else who was on holiday from a miles around I think).

Laurance Wines (overlooking the most amazing rose garden and magaificant gold statue suspended from a pole in the middle of a lake),

Canal Rocks,

Yallingup Beach (one of our famous surfing beaches),

Meelup Beach, the view of the beach from where I was sitting knitting, which my eyes just kept soaking up all the glorious blue tones of the water when I wasn't looking at my knitting. Bliss!

Dunsborough foreshore where the boys enjoyed going the inside these floating balloons.  Apparently the only ones in Australia.

During the holidays I worked on Dad's Raven STR mediumweight socks and completed the leg and started the heel of the first sock.  I enjoyed a magical knitting morning at Meelup Beach while DH and the boys swam and built sandcastles.

  

I did find a new woolly friend at the Williams Woolshed where we always stopped for lunch on the way to the farm.  They sell and promote local wool products and various arts.  The Shed Cafe serves up an array of nice homemade food, which is very popular with everyone.  This region is a well known fine merino wool growing area.

I've named our new friend Lucy Loopy after her US cousin Loopy.  I also couldn't resist the case with dancing sheep on it, which is a must have for every knitter I think.

Well I hoped you enjoyed our holiday highlights.  Until next time many good knitting wishes.

More Surprises

I am now a very excited lucky owner of a new Nikon SLR D60 camera , which was a totally unexpected combined Christmas/birthday gift from my DH and family.  These cameras were heavily discounted at  post Christmas sale at Harvey Norman's.  This is something I have been wanting ever since I started blogging and photographing yarn.  I already owned a good Canon SLR prior to the digital revolution, but were unable to afford the high purchase price of digital SLRs at the time and had to settle for my old faithful Canon Power Shot S2.  I must say it has served us well and taken some great photos over the last few years.   

Even after taking hundreds of photos with D60 of vary subjects mostly yarn of course trying out many of the shooting modes over the past week I am still continually amazed at the quality and definition of images that it photographs.  The SLR lens just bring the subjects alive.  Here is a photo of me using D60 for the first time taken by Matthew using my old camera.

Here are some snaps taken in the garden with D60.

 

 

 

 

I'll close leaving you with some photos of my recently acquired Socks That Rock yarn from the Blue Moon Fiber Arts sale in December.  I had lots of fun photographing these beauties. I will be adding individual photos with colourway details of the skeins in Ravelry shortly.

 

 

 

 

Wishing you a Happy and Healthy New Year with lots of good knitting times.  The Knitting Inspirations 2009 Knitting Events Calendar can be found here.

Festive Fun

Hope this finds you enjoying the festive season and quality time with your loved ones. Here are some highlights from our Christmas day, which was a quiet one with close family. 

I kept Christmas lunch simple by making my home made lasagna which I tend to only make for special occasions as per DH request.  I cooked the sauce and meatballs for the first time the day before in new slow cooker gifted to us in December by my wonderful Mum.  It cooked the sauce beautifully and I just assembled the lasagna on Christmas morning using fresh pasta and put it in the oven to cook slowly for approx an hour.  The sauce ingredients were all organic, so it tasted delicious.  DH and MIL were still talking about it the next day.

City Nits End of Year Party Highlights

We celebrated the end of our wonderful knitting year with a party at Nerise's (stringtheorist Raverly)  apartment in Perth last Saturday afternoon.  A fabulous time and lots of knitting fun was had by all as you can see.  Once again a huge big thank you to Nerise for providing such great champagne and venue and all our special knitting friends who joined us for this festive occasion.  We are now looking forward to this becoming a annual event.  You can click on images to enlarge them.

  

 

   

Here are some favourite finished objects from this year worn or brought along by guests to be judged for our knitting prizes.  Boy what a hard job Ann and I had.

Kate's Chevron Baby Afghan knit from Jo Sharp Dessert Garden Aran for her lucky niece in Brisbane.

 

Melita's Cable Belt Tunic using Jo Sharp DK Cotton. (Best in Garments)

 

Angelskein's (Ravelry name) Laminaria shawl knit in her own hand dyed Shellakabooki Sea silk and Ene's  shawl knit in The Knittery 2 ply silk/merino lace shawls. (Best in Lace)

 

Missmissjane (Ravelry name) lovely skirt knit using Jo Sharp DK cotton.

   

Frog's (Ravelry link) Kitri socks. (Best in Socks)

Ann and I are always continually amazed by the creativeness of our circle members.  Thank you all my wonderful friends for always enriching our lives with so much fibery and knitty goodness.  Wishing you all many good knitting times in 2009. 

Good Reads

Like alot of people I always like to read before I go to sleep each night to wind down.  In my search for some easy reading with a good story I stumbled across these great Australian authors this year, which I enjoyed very much and have being meaning to share with you for awhile now.  If you have ever wanted to know what life is like living in rural Australia on a sheep/cattle stations and the effort that goes into producing fine wool then your in for a real treat.

First up are these novels by Tasmanian author Rachael Treasure's  Jillaroo, The Stockmen and The Rouseabout.  She is currently working on her fourth novel, which I'm looking forward to.
 
The next lot were by Queensland author Tony Parsons novels The Call of The High Country, The Return to the High Country, Valley of the White Gold, and Silver in the Sun.
 

I have just finished reading Back on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber a very well known US author of The Shop of Blossom Street and Good Yarn, which are a series of stories based around a knitting shop. She has also written many other novels besides these.

All these books are widely available in most local bookshops.

A Walk Around My Garden with Some Knitting

As promised here are some pictures of my small organic garden blooming to life this Spring starting with the Pink Lady, Granny Smith apple and Lemon trees we planted this Autumn.

Silverbeet and celery that I planted mid September which have doubled in size since these photos were taken.
 
Heritage egg and sweet bite tomatoes with basil along with the Bay leaf tree were planted in October.  I will be adding some beans and pumpkins to our vegie collection soon when I get the chance. 

This little blueberry tree is growing and producing like mad.  I have it facing east, so it must be the perfect spot.  Along side under the balcony is my pink camellia bushes that were planted in June.

In August I pruned my eight standard roses quite hard which paid off as we are being rewarded with lots of beautiful blooms now.  My climbing rose that has never flowered since we planted it last year is also flowering.
   
 


These Pansies around the fountain in the front court yard have put on a wonderful flower show since Autumn for all our visitors that come to our front door.

When I look up while hanging out the clothes on the line in our backyard my eyes are drawn to this amazing mass of colour.  It is a large Jacaranda tree that is growing in someone's backyard up from us.

Onto the knitting.  I completed the toes for two new vanilla toe-up socks this weekend.  I have been wanting to get these socks on the needles for awhile now, as I like to have two plains socks on the go that I can pick up and knit anytime without having to follow a pattern.  I am using the new Fleece Artist yarn BFL/nylon in wine for the first one and Trail sock a merino/nylon in Blush for the second, which are on my Ravelry projects page.  Both yarns are lovely to knit with and will provide me with long lasting everyday socks.
  
I recently have added these wonderful yarns to my stash.  The first two were dyed by AngelSkein who is a member of our City Nits circle and blogs here about all her knitting and fibre fun.  The third skein is Hand Maiden sea silk in ocean that I purchased from Jollyjumbuck that I want to knit into a little nothing summer scarf.

I was also very lucky to add Nancy Bushes latest offering Knitted Lace of Estonia and The Little Box of Socks by Charlene Schurch to my library.

Until next time wishing you lots of happy knitting time and thank you to those who left comments on my last post.

Filling in the Gaps Since Last Post

I know it has been ages since I have posted, which I apologise for.  To be honest life seems to be getting busier and busier and I struggle to keep up sometimes, so things like blogging slide.  Now let me fill you in with some knitting and non knitting highlights from the last few months.

Actually I have been knitting quite alot and and finished my Gale Stole, Gust scarf gifted to Ann and a pair of socks for Matthew, plus two single socks.  More photos and project details  on my Ravelry page. 

May I present my Gale and Gust. 

 

I was very lucky to be able to stash all these gorgeous skeins of Handmaiden cashbah and sea silk yarn before the US dollar dropped back in June.  More details on my Ravelry stash page.

 

Also, I couldn't resist purchasing some gorgeous silky merino that was hand-dyed using natural dyes from Shivaya Naturals when they opened.

On the family front in August we hosted Adam's 5th Birthday party at a local indoor play center called Jungle Gym, which was a great success.  I made all the cupcakes and decorated them as per Adam's request.

The boys and I visited the farm in the first week of the school holidays, which as a lovely to spend time with my family.  Here are some photos of the boys enjoying themselves of The Brig Amity sailing ship and on the old warship guns on display at the Fortress in Albany. 

 

   

At the end of October we hosted a joint 7th birthday party for Matthew and with his close friend Tristin at Jungle Gym, which was another party success.  Once again I made cupcakes which went down a treat.

 

I have also spent sometime in the garden and planted some silverbeat, celery and tomatoes.  I grow all our plants using organic methods.  Before I had Matthew and I took up knitting again I grew lots of organice vegies.  These photos were taken a couple of weeks ago and they have tripled in size. More photos soon.

Well I hope you enjoyed the update and I will be back soon with what I am currently knitting, have been reading and a garden tour.  May you enjoy much good knitting.

City Nits Highlights

Thought it would be nice to share some photos from our City Nits knitting circle yesterday.  Our group has has certainly grown, which is delightful.  As always we all had such a lot of knitting fun.  We welcomed three new people and a visitor from Paris.

I am currently working slowly on two pairs of socks and are trying to find time to finish off my Gale stole, which is technically finished, but I need to add quite a few more repeats so it will wrap completely around me.  It is lovely and warm which is just what I need at the moment as I always feel cold.  I am also trying to update my Ravelry stash.  I have to admit to lots of yarn retail therapy recently, which has been driven by my pink yarn obsession.  Enjoy!

Blissful Knitting

I had the pleasure of accompanying 23 ladies on a knitting retreat to Toodyay this weekend that Ann and I had organised.  Everyone had a fabulous time and we enjoyed ourselves that much that we have booked again for next year and cannot wait to do it all again.  This will become annual event for us the weekend after Mothers Day.

The weekend consisted of a sock and vest knit alongs using yarn especially dyed for the retreat.  We were very lucky to have people volunteer to do a hand dyeing and steeking demo.  I did a blocking demo with half my Gale stole, which I have technical finished knitting according to the pattern, but need to make it longer and things have been rather busy of late, so I didn't get it completed in time.  I need to add another 10 repeats, so must put aside some time to get this done, as I could do with a nice warm stole now the mornings are getting quite cool and we are heading into winter.

Here are some highlights from the weekend.  You can view the Retreat flickr photo stream here.

Truly an amazing uplifting and inspiring weekend!  A huge thank you to all our knitting friends who made this such a successful retreat for us.  Joyful knitting wishes to you all.