My milkshake is all knitted up.

Ends are woven and thanks to the gigantic hole in the ozone layer over New Zilnd, she is almost dry. Do you see my new blocking board! It is actually a cardboard cutting board from Spotlight, not sure how long it will live for, what with having wet things lay on it all the time, but it really really helped. I am very nervous about the seaming of this, my edges are not pretty, I should have slipped them. I have a feeling that this is going to look a bit too homemade. I like it when people exclaim “Did you make that!”, but not so much when they assume it. The blocking has improved much though, the pieces were really pulling to one side, but they are all acting like perfect little knitted soldiers now. I might buy a bottle of Pinot tonight and have myself a seaming party. If I finsh the sewing before I finish the bottle, I’ll have a new cardi to wear this weekend. Oh, except I have no buttons. I really really miss the Kichijoji button shop. I have looked high and low for some, but no cigar, I think I might have to make some self covered ones.

In other news, due to the end of semester workload pileup (exams in under a month. ho. lee. fuck.) I have been a busy little knitting beaver, still working on the ultra monotonous Silk Garden Scarf, and have cast on a bright yellow winter blues banashing Ms Marigold. Why don’t I knit everything top down?

How cool are these!

Textile inspired ceramics from Madieke Fleuren via Bloesem

I cast on a new project.

I loved this pattern immediately, and it took only the slightest encouragement from a trusted judge of cute to make the purchase. I am using a butter soft alpaca in cream that was one of my favouritist yarns in all Japan, and I am not sure that I have quite enough. I do have a big long scarf in this yarn and one mitten, so if I do run out, it’s curtains for them. I love a good cream, but it is so hard to find one that is not too white, or yellowy or cheap looking.

The stitch is super easy and there is no shaping, so the back is a few rows shy of doneness.

It is twisting to one side, hopefully a ruddy good blocking will sort that out though.

I think I am settling into a Southern Winter of Cardis. They are such a versatile and necessary item down here.

In other news, I have been picking up knitting patterns from all over the country, I love one pamphlet called Jean Greenhowes’s Jiffy Knits, not least because they have knitted baked beans! Knitted Baked Beans! I wish I had knit up some of these to send to my trans-tasman friends for Anzac Day last week.

And I also got New Zealand Picture Knitting. While it lacks Jenny Kee’s gobsmacking use of colour, it is still a fine collection of hugely unflattering garments.

Not much knitting content to report, because, well, not much knitting. My hands hurt.

I have been getting a sore little finger on my right hand for around a year, but now my index finger is getting the throbs too. I’m not sure why, I don’t really want to blame it on knitting, though it seems like the most obvious target. I have been spending heaps more time on the computer though, and I do click the laptop mouse with my index finger. Maybe i should get an external mouse. Or learn to control the computer with my mind. Or do some crochet.

It could be that is it SO COLD here that my joints are freezing up. It is a reasonable 15 degrees outside, but inside is much like Siberia at Christmas. This is because New Zealanders believe themselves to be such a hardy bunch as to not require the fluffy Northern Hemisphere luxury items like insulation, double glazing or central heating. I really forgot about this. The only places I am comfortable temperature wise right now is in bed or huddled under the shower. Right now I am sitting on the couch with a thick fluffy blanket over my lap and over the oil coloumn heater to create a little heat tent (fire risk) with my warming laptop and hotwater bottle snuggled up next to me and I am wearing a real crime against fashion fleece jacket, and still my nose is cold.

Look here! Even nature is wet felting now! This is a little dip under a fence we saw on a recent walk, and just look how when the little sheep escape, bits of their wool get caught on the fence and rub together to make felt! I was tempted to cut it off and take it home as a souvenir, but I thought it might possibly make it more comfortable for sheep on their way to freedom to crawl under there with it on.

Well I got the mark back for the horrific essay I wrote last week, and it wasn’t bad at all. I worked myself into quite a state about it, I think I half expected to get a Z and be told to leave the university grounds immediately.  I also started my new job which is unexpectedly lovely, I have a holiday next week, and I got a big box of vintage New Zealand yarn in the mail today. Yay! All good news! I celebrated by weaving in the ends on these

A nice quick project, and a necessarily practical one. The mornings in our house are decidedly frosty, and I need to keep my wrists warm so I can keep those fingers typing! I am reading loads of Victorian pirate novels at the moment, I wanted to name them something piratical, so Mrs Silver it is.

I knitted them up in garter stitch rib, this is meant to be the “right” side, but I really prefer the other side.

They are a cosy mix of Noro something or other, and the Kaiapoi Glen Mist I scooped up a couple of weeks back.

I think it is Autumn. This is last of the blue hydrangeas, the rest have all rusted into tired purples.

Summer has seemed pretty darn endless thus far, and what with all the walking up steep hills and complete absence of air-con that Wellington affords, I am starting to tire of it. I am sure my chilblain stricken August self will look back at this and exclaim at my spoiled ignorance, but I do kinda like bad weather, and Autumn means the beginning of the Knitting Season! Ooh, my little Firefox weather add-on just changed it’s forecast to drizzle! I love a good drizzle.

So anyhoo, the turn in weather has inspired me to cast on for an easy peasy stormy weathery Noro Silk Garden striped scarf. I needed something nice and easy to knit to keep me from screaming while reading Victorian pirate novels on ProjGut. Fun at first, but so frickin repetitive. The pirates, not the scarf, which is pleasantly repetitive.

It is nail biting watching the colours change, I only have two skeins, which is okay, cause I want it skinny, but they are both the same colour so I was a bit worried it wouldn’t be that stripey, never to fear though.

It’s been a while since I posted a pic of Rio, so here is another of him aroused from his slumber by a fly.

A finished item, thank the good lord.

So lovely to knit something quick and satisfying, a wise friend once told me that it is the yarn that makes a project fly, and I think that was the case here.

A last minute shit I’m leaving Japan buy, this is an Avril Tweed in a deep dark red, a total steal, I think this cost me less than twenty five dollars. It is a bit scratchy so not so good for something like, uh, a hood, but super warm.

The hood sits straight normally, it is just wild southerlies pushing it to the side here.

It has not won rave reviews in this house, Jess thinks it ‘busy’ and doesn’t really understand the point of a vest, why does it not have sleeves? I don’t know, maybe I am not wearing the right thing underneath it? But I think I like it.

We had a great time over Easter, eating hangi, swimming in clear blue seas and op shopping.  Here is but a small peek at the goodies I picked up over the break.

Very soon to be handwarmers, perhaps in Esther Bozak’s Mock Kilting Stitch 

I think legwarmers, but I don’t really know, I just love these colours together.

And a set of four of these plates.

We also got two candlewick bedspreads, a set of lampshades, a three piece suit, and cups full of buttons and lace and lovely bits. Thanks Sallies.

Thanks for your comments and nagging motivation! The essay is done and gone, and I am off for a loooong Easter break to catch the last remaining tidbits of summer.

Have a fun Easter and eat lots of chocolate!

Another post this week and it is only Tuesday? Could it be that I have much more pressing things to do that I am trying desperately to avoid?

This is a jumper I finished around hanami 2006 (retro!).

From Rowan’s Vintage Style, pattern name Salina, in the recommended yarn, Felted Tweed. Made in medium, but being the hussy that I am, I wish I had made it in small for a nice snug fit.

Look! I even applied lip gloss for you.

This I wear all the time, and wash regularly, and after two years it is still in perfect nick. Rowan yarns are expensive, but it is for a reason damn it all.