I can has update?

I've been working on a few different things over the last couple of weeks.  I had a knitting order for three scarves, two of which are already finished.  The third scarf is being knit in a simple lace pattern that I should be able to work with half my brain tied behind my back but for some reason it's kicking my butt :o/  I will, however, get it done.  Soon.

I had started a very lightweight shawl a while back which is currently kind of in hibernation.  I just got around to taking a progress photo of it.  Its made from some smooshily soft camel/bunny/silk (about 40% silk which accounts for the shine). There was only 50g of fibre, but because of the high percentage of silk there's a whopping 363m of  lace weight yarn here.  More than enough for the shawl I'm making.

Camel Bunny Silk - 50g - 363m

Pattern: Fallen Leaf Frilled Triangular Scarflette

I started a pair of cashmere beaded gloves a while back and have finally managed to actually finish the first glove.  The other will have to wait till I've gotten a couple of other things finished.

Pattern: Eisblume

 I've also been spinning a bit.  I seem to be working mainly with IxCHeL fibres recently.  Not intentional but there you have it. There is one EGMTK fibre in there...all by its lonesome.

Gallifrey - Merino/Angora/Tencel
70/10/20 (Twinklebunny)

Give Peace a Chance - Ixchelbunny - Funky Bunny Batt
(Angora, merino, yak, alpaca, silk, soy quiviut, angelina, glitz)
Skein 1: 82g, 9WPI, 174m
Skein 2; 64g, 9WPI, 145.5m

Paint Splattered Overalls
EGMTK Merino/Carbonised Bamboo
1 Skein: 109g, 11WPI, 205m

Early Bird - BFL/Bunny
N-plied for a self striping sock weight yarn.
1 Skein: 100g, 14WPI, 295.5m

Another epic knit

I just finished blocking my latest in what appears to be a series of epic knits. This one is a shawl. Shawls aren't such a big deal, I know. But consider that the pattern is written entirely in German (a language I neither speak or read) and the designer chose to invent his own little system of knitting symbols that weren't even comparable to the symbols of other designers.

Because of this it all seemed very daunting when I first got the pattern and looked at the charts. However help was at hand and I found some very useful bits and pieces around Ravelry that allowed me to understand the symbols and figure out where to start.

With my trusty translation notes in hand, I ordered some beads and started re-charting. The re-charting took me far less time than I thought it would and I had knitted as far as row 39 before bed that same night.

It took me a total of sixteen days (including the inevitable ripping back of half the damn shawl to fix a gradation issue) to complete the knitting part of the shawl (including the beading which slowed me down immensely).

Funnily enough, this is exactly how long it took me to complete my first lace shawl too. Anyhoo, its all finished and blocked and full of beady awesomeness. Here's some pics...

The gradation didn't turn out quite how I had hoped it would.  But this is the first time I've tried to spin a gradated yarn so I'm chalking that up to experience.  I'm still quite happy with how the shawl turned out.  The beading is quite subtle and the yarn is lovely and soft.  The whole things weighs less than 120g and it should be wonderfully warm for winter.

The shrug and the needlecase

Some of you may recall that in my last January post I briefly alluded to a shrug I was knitting for a lady in Victoria.  Well said shrug is finished AND delivered.  I even have photos of the recipient wearing it.  I had quite the adventure knitting it and in the end it turned out rather nicely.  Here...see for yourself...

 

Here are some pics of it after I'd blocked it.  I'd just taken delivery of 100 T-pins that day and this was my first opportunity to actually use them.  They work very well - purchase justified! ;o)

I added beads to the edging of the entire shrug, including the sleeves.  The pattern actually calls for the sleeves to be left without edging but to me this looked un-finished some how so I added the same edging pattern (yes including the beads) to the bottom of the sleeves too.  And I'm glad I did, it looks much better this way imho.

The extra little bit I added to the sleeves

The entire shrug ended up using roughly 300m of yarn and there was almost 700m of yarn left over which, of course, I sent back with the shrug.  I wonder what she'll end up making with it.

The happy recipient

Not forgetting that this whole adventure was part of a swap.  In return for the shrug I received an awesome needle case especially made for my interchangeable needles.  I love it, its totally awesome and its great to have some of my needles actually organised so that I can find them.  Here is a small pic of it and you can see more pics here.

 

Since both customers are happy with their parcels I'd say this was sucessful swap.

Check out my balls!

When I first started learning to spin, I kept all my 'left over' singles to practice my Navajo plying.  I'd just add whatever I was currently spinning to an ever growing bobbin of left over singles and then when the bobbin was full I'd go on an N-plying jaunt.  I ended up with skein of yarn that was, well, unattractive to say the least.  But it WAS good practice for my N-plying, which I'm now not too crap at. I took all these skeins of leftovers plus some other leftover yarn bits and wound them all into magic yarn balls.

A magic yarn ball, as many will already know, is a ball of yarn made up of scraps and left overs all joined together.  I use the 'Russian join' technique so that I wont have to sew any ends in when I'm knitting.  Yes.  I'm lazy. ;o)

So now I have a little collection of magic balls and a number of smallish leftover balls of hand-spun from various projects.  All of this yarn is pretty equal to a commercial 4ply, which as we all know, is perfect for socks.  But I'm not overly keen on hand knitted socks.  Sure, I've made them  (just to see if I could) but they're just not really my thing. 

So I've been sitting on these balls for a while thinking about what I should do with them.  Today I decided that they're going to become a blanket made up of mitred squares.  It should be big.  I should be very colourful.  And it should be massively ugly. I cant wait. :oD I'm starting it as soon as I finish this post, but in the mean time...here's some pics of my balls. :oP

Anyhoo...onto other things.  I recently finished making an Irish crochet bag that I mentioned in a previous post.  It was for a lady in Tasmania.  It took me three months to get it done and I was waiting to finish it so I could start a lace shrug for another lady in Victoria.  But more about that later.  Here's a pic of the finished bag.

I made it as part of a swap.  The lady I've made it for is sending me a bag also but she is not quite finished making it yet so I'm holding this (at her request) till she is done.

New brakes = broke for Xmas

About a month ago I bought myself another car.  It's a 1990 Ford Fairmont Ghia.  It was only $2000 and looks pretty good for an older car.  It has climate control, electric windows...all the mod cons.  And so far its been a nice drive.  The electric windows don't actually work but the car dealer I bought it from is supposed to be doing something about that, in fact, it was a condition of the sale.  I haven't  heard from him in a while but that's okay, I'm going to ring him and be annoying today.  Not just about the windows though. There are a couple of things I need to 'discuss' with him.

On Wed the 15th I drove down to Sydney to visit with my Mother and Sister for the day.  It was my first long-ish (about 200km from my place to my sisters) drive in my new car and I was looking forward to it as I really enjoy long distance driving.  I left at 5am thinking I'd avoid the crazy Sydney morning rush hour traffic.  Unfortunately so did everyone else.  I obviously miss-timed it so I drove all the way to Sydney in fairly heavy traffic.  I got off the free way at 6.45am to find myself right smack in the middle of peak hour.  So I settled in and prepared myself for a long annoying drive through North Sydney so I could make my way over the harbour and over to Rockdale which is where my sister lives.

All in all the drive went reasonably well.  Until I got to the harbour tunnel which is when my brakes made a funny click and went all spongy.  That was a bit worrying but the brakes were still working well enough to slow the car down if needed.  But each time I depressed the brake pedal they got more spongy and it sunk closer and closer to the floor.  By the time I reached General Holmes Drive and was heading past the airport I was feeling decidedly panicky.  And then some moron cut me off, which is fairly common in Sydney.  So, as you do...I stomped the brakes.  They failed.  I even got a high pitched alarm and a nice little red 'brakes fail' warning light on my dash.  I aged thirty years on the spot.  

Luckily I didn't hit anyone and I made it to my sisters place alive but it was VERY scary during those last 15 minutes and needless to say when I finally pulled into her driveway I was a total mess.  I called my partner and told him the brakes had failed and we agreed I'd need to do something about it...just as soon as the panic receded a bit.

Obviously I couldn't drive home that night (as intended) with no brakes so I took the car down to a brakes specialist that my sisters partner recommended.  They were pretty nice.  They agreed to look at the car straight away and get back to me.  They looked over my brakes (while I sat at my sisters freaking out) and then called to calmly inform me that it was going to cost $790 (including GST) to fix them because of how much actually needed doing.  Apparently the master cylinder was gone ($300), the brake pads were all down to metal ($218) and the rear handbrake caliper ($200) had been seized up for quite some time but had had a nice metal tube inserted into it somehow to disguise this fact.  

So I rang my ever patient partner and he came up with some money and we got the brakes fixed.  This, however, meant I had to spend the night at my sisters.  With her and my mother.  I love my mother and sister but together they make a very...shall we say 'uncomfortable' experience.  It was hell.  And it only cost us $900 (including the $100 fuel I'd put in the car to get there).  Worst. Night. In.Years.

So...I'm clearly not happy about the whole thing.  The car yard sold me a car with dangerously bad brakes that had been deliberately dodgied up to hide the fact that they were dangerously bad.  They even gave me a pink slip (so I could change ownership with the RTA) for the damn thing...knowing the car wasn't actually road worthy.  They could lose their dealers license for that.  And today, when I call them to let them know just how unhappy I am that my brakes failed on the way to Sydney, and that they STILL haven't fixed the electric windows and the friggin thing now apparently has an oil leak, I'm going to point out that they probably shouldn't have given it an illegal pink slip and if they don't make me suddenly VERY VERY happy I might just decide to make their Christmas as difficult as mine is going to be after having to spend all that money.