A survey of ufos

I have a number of ufos on the needles at the moment. Here they are:


From left to right: Hanami in Ebony Handmaiden Sea Silk; Spiral Boot Socks in Foxy Lady Cherry Tree Hill; Stacked Eyelet Cowl in Shrinking Violet Socks that Rock; Evie in Deep Rowan Soft 4 ply.

Dont the yarns look pretty? Shouldnt that, plus the fact that all of these projects are ridiculously close to being finished, inspire me?



Apart from an inspiration deficit, I'm also being delayed by having to take it easy on knitting at the moment. My elbows, wrists and hands are sore from the joint softening hormones that are still floating around in my body. This is exacerabted by lugging around the 6.5 kilo Mr Wriggly. So, its very limited knitting for me for a while. Its killing me!

Ta da!

And here it is [making flourishing gesture with hands a la game show hostess displaying prizes] - Flourish.



I think the hours of beading really paid off. Trust me, there are about 800 tiny shiny beads of the palest pink worked into the edging of the scarf.


To sum up - the Kidsilk Haze is lovely to work with despite being hairy; Flourish is light yet feels like it will be warm enough to fend off the early spring chill; and it is gorgeous enough to glam up the outfit that I can fit into, thus making it wedding-worthy. Thats a triple thumbs up from me!

Beading - argh!

Am doing the beading on the second of florish's edges. It looks great, subtle yet shiny. But it goes on and on and on.

On an unrelated note, here is Lloyd's message for the week. He says 'fight the power!'.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

Equ, Australia's leading sock model who relocated to the International City of Love, Canberra, is getting married at the end of the month. I've been grappling with the problem of what to wear to a glamourous afternoon garden wedding. My outfit needs to combine warmth (the ceremony will be outside), glamour (natch), fit over and preferrably disguise the extra kilos I'm still carrying (possibly wishful thinking) and be breastfeeding capable. I think the key to this is basic black and a gorgeous accessory - other than Lloyd aka Mr Wriggly.

Remember flourish? This scarf combines warmth, glamour and kilo-hiding coverage! Its been languishing in the stash box, half finished because I ran out of enthusiasm for the endless edge beading. I exumed it, consulted the pattern book just to confirm the stitch when the very first sentence of the pattern struck me. There, in bold, was the instruction to use two strands of Kidsilk Haze. Two strands! Argh! And I'd been wondering why there seemed to be so much yarn included in the kit, and why my scarf seemed thin in comparison to the lush, voluptuous one in the photo.


So I've been carefully and slowly frogging, trying to ensure I dont strip the fluff from the yarn. Actually its not as bad as it could be as the crochet is very loose and lacy, and the scarf hasnt been handled much so with a bit of gentle persuation it comes undone.

Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Shrunken heads

When I was child I saw a shrunken head at a museum. I cant remember which museum, but I suspect it was the Australian Museum in Sydney. The head was about the size of an orange, with stitched up eyes and mouth, and the hair seemed shockingly long. I remember being particularly impressed with the idea that the shrinking was induced by stuffing the skinned head with hot sand.

The memories of the shrunken head sprang to mind when I finished the Red Light Special. I thought something looked a bit wrong, and when I tried it on I realised that unless my friend had a shrunken head, he wasnt going to be able to wear it. Infact the only person in the house who could reasonably model it was Eric the Easter Island Statue. And even he doesnt look too happy.



So, what to give my friend for his birthday?? Woolly Wormhead to the rescue! Ferreting around in my stash produced some lovely Morehouse Merino that once upon a time had been intended for children's mittens. (This was before global warming.) Some quick knitting during Lloyd's sleeps produced a nice, basic beanie which fits a normal adult head. Phew.