oh no!! :(

I went to block a special project where I used hand dyed yarn in six different colours and when I dipped it in the water the colours ran badly. *sob* How do I fasten the colour!? It's currently resoaking in a vinegar/water mix with my fingers crossed.

It's been suggested that I wash and wash and let the colour run out as much as it's going to. The red is the main culprit. I don't know if I just didn't dye that one properly. I had it a dark pink before I found the pillar box red and re-dyed it. Red seems to be a troublesome colour when it comes to bleeding. And bleed it has. It looks like the crochet hook I used was too sharp! I'm hoping it will wash out a lot when I put it through its paces. I'm gonna just do the red area first for a while I think before I work on the whole lot.

an irish knitty evening

I had last Friday off so I decided to go to Ireland for the weekend. Coz I can. ^^ After I arrived and checked in to my hotel I wandered down through the streets (with a little tourist shopping on the way) to Trinity College. There I met Sinéad, an irish knitter whose blog I read. She took me to a cute little knitting shop called This Is Knit. It was a very inviting store with shelves clearly displaying a variety of delicious yarn.

Sinéad showed me around pointing out different yarns that she liked and some irish crafted ones. Some of her other knitter friends met us there and they chatted while I looked around and chose what to spend some unexpected early received birthday money from family on.

I decided on two skeins of Malabrigo in Atardecer (about sport weight/5ply) which is 51% Silk and 49% Merino Wool. Warm and so soft. I quite like the colours and I'm currently thinking of making some kind of cowl. I also bought two balls of Studio Donegal Aran Tweed in yellow and grey. This 100% wool was spun in Ireland partly using irish wool. Aparently irish wool isn't great for knitting on it's own and is mostly used in making carpets.

Once my shopping was done, we went to Cafe Manila for some Filipino food. It was nice food, once I decided what to have, and we chatted for ages about all sorts and had a good laugh too. And of course we all pulled out our yarn works after the food was gone. :) Knitters.

I had a most lovely evening with these ladies, one of whom is a friend of Ysolda Teague too! (I plan to buy her new knitty pattern book Little Red in the City.) They were great fun and it was interesting to meet up with them.

Most of us went out to a pub afterwards where I tried a Guinness. I drank my half pint. It's a done thing. And it won't be done again. Ha ha. Gross stuff but I'm not a beer drinker anyway. It was fantastic to hang out with some irish people and get a regular irish experience. If I'm ever that way again, I'm happy to go for another round.

The rest of my weekend can be read about here and here.

pixie fix

The lovely idea of my pixie beanie in the gorgeous colette has been put aside for quite a while as I'd got to the point where I was unhappy with the progress. I'd started declining too soon and it was getting tight on my head. I'd also found a mistake in the tricky to read leaf pattern part right at the beginning before I figured out how to interpret the pattern. I wasn't sure to which extent to frog it.

When I went on a holiday with my work family to the Cotswolds the other week. I decided to grab my pixie beanie to take along. I decided to frog back to the start of the decreases and keep the mishap at the beginning for that handmade touch. :P So I threaded my circular needle through the stitches where I wanted to frog to and then ... rip it, rip it. Then I got to work again. This time I added another two or three straight rounds before decreasing again. And I happily worked away with no internet to distract me. It really was quite lovely.
I'm now attempting to round off the leaves to enter into a straight knit as I decrease to my pixie point. I must be into the pixie idea at the moment because I finally found these shoes for the wedding I'm a part of next month. They even had 'pixie' in the title.

Now that I'm in a job where I work 40hrs a week I have to readjust my free time. All in all it's pretty good for full time work (and work is going well) but after I play on the internet a bit or walk to the shops I realise I haven't got as much time for crafting as I've had in the past few years. I am managing to work some in. I have a couple of secret projects on the go which I obviously can't show you just yet. I've also been busy booking a Europe week (including the wedding at it's end).

One crafty thing I thoroughly miss is a big craft store with all sorts in the one place. Where I am now there is a little thread shop, a little wool shop, a little art shop and a little scrapbooking shop. Limited supplies. *sigh* As for people to sit around a knit with...sadly there's no ravelry groups near by but I have found some local groups (you have to pay to go to!). I'm going to a craft group tomorrow night though that is a 'bring your project and we'll sit around crafting' type of gathering so there'll probably be various crafts. I'm looking forward to that. Other than that I'll just keep up my own crafting coz that's what I do.

:) Happy Mother's Day to my Mum! xo

adjusting

I made it to the UK--finally! It took an extra 25hrs on top of an already 28hr journey. Delayed in Malaysia. But I have now had my opening week and boy was it a bit of a jolt to the system. Oh how I've loved my 30hrs or less per week jobs! This one will be 40hrs regularly but last week was 43hrs with the dad away for my first week. Getting use to new routines, a new environment in a new country, new people and helping care for a toddler and twin babies has been full on. And all that after my extended journey. Phew! Hopefully this week will flow a bit better and I'll feel more and more settled as time goes by. I made it to Canterbury for a shopping trip. I particularly needed more clean tops for the twins to slobber and spew on. ;) One top I got was this grey cardigan. I quite like it. The way it is now. I just finished adjusting it. Can you tell? It use to have double buttons all the way down. But I didn't like it all buttoned up and thought it looked a little odd mostly undone so I cut the buttons off and sewed together all the button holes that I didn't want there. I also took off the knitted belt/tie coz it just didn't suit my shape and cut the belt loops off. Now I think it makes a lovely swing jacket. It's about half wool too so will give me a good bit of warmth on cooler days. The only downfall now is the sleeves. I love the length of them but when I put it on for this photo, over another long sleeve top, I had to drag it up my arms. Why do half the tops here seem to have such skinny sleeves? Give us some room. Otherwise I'm most happy with it.

extension

I bought this bag a while ago when I was roaming artfire.com. That's the hub where my online shop sits. I was flicking through one of the sellers I like, Rainbow Swilrz, when I came across this. I think I may have waited a day just to make sure but I laughed when I first saw it and just had to have it. It is just so me! The little monster is so cute. I got the nice sunny yellow colour. My excuse was that bright colours will be needed in the UK. My only issue with it was that the strap wasn't long enough so even at its maximum stretch it sat higher on my hip than I liked. Thus the long planned finally done extension.
I had hoped to find a cute but somewhat matching fabric for this project. However, since I leave the country in less than two weeks I decided to make do with something I had in stock. Using a bit of a vague idea in my head and a bit more thought than my last project, I got to work cutting, ironing and sewing. I had already planned to add a phone pocket on the strap coz there's not one inside and it makes for easier access. The first one I made and sewed on was actually too small to fit my current phone so I unpicked it and used a different method and added more space to it. Then I remembered I wanted it lower. So I unpicked again and resewed it in the right place. Finally I cut the strap and sewed this piece in.

I made it longer than I needed so I had a bit of room to adjust it. Now I can make it sit at a happier more comfortable height. The second phone pocket worked much better this time too. It snuggly fits my phone and will hopefully fit the one I'll be using in the UK without it falling out. Now my bag is ready for it's UK adventure too.

fabric bash

I leave my hometown in two weeks. Two weeks!! I'm beginning to pack and had a few pens floating around. So last night I pulled out my sewing machine and chose some fabric from my collection and had a little bash. Poor mishandled fabric. With a little bit of thought--really just a little--I started hacking fabric, ironing some heat'n'bond on (to hold it still and add some stiffness), and sewing here and there. I was aiming for something small and skinny. It was trickier than I imagined but I did come to some sort of conclusion. It's by no means a masterpiece but it will suffice.
My ideas were a bit flawed. It was hard to sew it skinny on my machine. The outcome was bodgy job. Wonky zip and rough sewing. One tag is twisted. I had to hand sew each end of the zip where there was still open gaps because of misplanning.

In after thought I could have done the lining different so the inside zip edge was covered too. But it was a quick decision started a bit late in the evening for a decent job. Ha ha. It will hold my pens though so it will do it's job. I have one more little craft project and then I probably won't do any more until I'm on the plane to the UK.

moving sale

I'm moving to the UK at the end of the month. Off for a working adventure. So everything in my artfire store is 30% off until Friday 25th March (Australian time). So swing by and pick yourself up a bargain!

Products will still be available when I am overseas but will be back to their regular price.

Don't miss your chance for a goodie at an excellent price at kelgell creations.