Latest experimental knitting project...

Just wanted to see how it would go if I alternated between my smallest and largest knitting needles. I'm not really excited by the colours and might do one for myself with just some nice fine Black and White yarn. This scarf is K/P 8 of each colour with a random amount of rown on the Small/Large needles with one row inbetween with the medium just to make it easier.

Put down that weapon and pick up the sticks

I've been neglecting my knitting recently... What with all the zine making and working full time and all that but now the winter is settling in, peak knitting season is about to begin!

Here’s some instructions for my latest creation that is not actually finished and therefore I can’t actually testify for this as an actual workable pattern but I’d rather you just took a little inspiration and just made it up for yourself anyway...

Hotrodlibrarians super hot knitted tool belt thingi

1. Find yourself a knitting teacher and or good book and give it a go.

2. CO about, I don’t know, 20 stitches or so... I’m gonna felt this coz I love felting and coz it covers up any little mistakes nicely... but remember that felting shrinks things by nearly ½ so make it a fair bit bigger than you actually want it to be.

3. Keep King or K1 P1 if you want (I’m just knitting coz I want a bit of texture after the felting but thats just me) until it wraps around your waist almost 2 times.

4. Im finishing off my belt bit in a point by K2tog at the start and finish of every second line but you finish it off however you want to...

5. I’m now getting onto King about 5 or 6 pockets of varing sizes that I’m then going to stictch onto the belt maybe before I felt it or maybe I’ll just felt them all at the same time and stitch them on later, I haven’t decided yet.

6. Im then gonna cut a button hole in my pointy bit (yet another good thing about felting is that you can cut it and it (theoretically) can handle it.)

7. Then Im gonna sew some funky buttons on so that its kind of opposite to a regular belt where you’d have one button and lots of holes. I’m gonna put a few buttons on to cover for fluctuating weight/period bloating/crappy sewing skills that will probably see the buttons put in the wrong spot.

8. Wear with pride to stash all your Knit graffiti parafinalia/Roller skating tools/weapons of mass distruction.

Good Finds...

Op Shop crawls can go either way. There are many factors that can make or break a successful Op Shopping experience;

You've got to pick you area - I am lucky enough to live in a skanky industrial suburb... I have 3 Op Shops in close proximity, all in the Industrial area away from main roads which = not overly picked over and Huge!

You've got to be in the right mood - The mood for hunting through Racks and Racks, in other words - Patience... Something I do not always possess!

You've got to have the time to browse and be unencumbered by pesky hangers on like Kids/Boyfriends.

You've got to be picky and have a few people of different sizes that like the same stuff as you, either that, or know whats good to take a risk on selling on Ebay.

The planets were aligned the other day and I managed to find a few worthwhile bargains, Here's some of the choice items I came upon;


This Hot Roller skating Tshirt in both Black and my fave, Purple! Score!!

This Cute Drag Racing Checkered Flag diner style shirt... Cept it's Size 6... I would need two of these joined together to have any chance of fitting it. This one is going straight to Ebay!










This one is an advertisement for TV1 but I can forgive that for the Cute SHAG style Pic.












Not Sure if this is Genuine Vintage or Reproduction Vintage, But the Tag looks old and I live a good Hawaiian Shirt!












This one comes under the "so ugly its fab" Heading... again too small but who can resist! There's always the dress up box!!

Kitchy-stitches is the Bomb!

I was browsing in the Ol' home town library recently when I came across this gem...

The Museum of kitchy-stitches: a gallery of notorious knits. My favourites included the 'Hamburgered sandwich pillow set', 'The human spirit' and 'I call them underwear'. The book is supposed to 'celebrate' the worst of knits... funny thing was I actually quite liked some of them and was disappointed the patterns were not included !!!

Check it out for yourselves at the stitchymcyarnpants website.

Not that I've been doing much knitting lately, Ive been working on a little stripey bag for way too long. But Yarn Bombing: the art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti may well inspire me to pick up the needles once more.

For those of you not familiar with the concept of Yarn bombing, I've included a few choice examples below... Enjoy!

Latest Project...

I've finally gotten over my fear of double pointed needles (DPN) to knit my first pair of socks. Not sure what I was so worried about, it didn't take long to the hang of, well apart from having to unstitch a few rows and realising on the second sock that I'd missed two rows on the cuff, but made up for it with two too many rows on the heel!

I'm now onto my second pair of Socks 101 (from Knitalong: celebrating the tradition of knitting together.) I guess you know what to expect for Christmas this year!

Sublime Library Stitching!

Check out these great, um, thingi's from Sublime Stitching.

Pimped and in Print!

Check it out... my pimped up shopping trolley has made it into print!

(Cruzin Magazine February 2010 Pg. 6 )

P.S. Me and the girls made it into Rods Ramblings too!

Obsessive/Compulsive Knitting...

Ive always had a bit of an obsessive, addictive personality, at the moment, it’s knitting which may come as a surprise to many people who have know me in my ‘past lives’. But you know what, I’m actually pretty proud of myself. I taught myself from a book and seem to be pretty good at it. I can just make up patterns as I go and they actually do come out sort of like what Ive seen in my head. It took me a long time to find anything that I felt I was good at (photography in year 11 media studies class was the first time I felt it!)

Combined with my other obsession at the moment which is reading, I picked up its my party and I'll knit if I want to (Sharon Aris) and Friday Night Knitting Club (Kate Jacobs), non and fiction respectively...

Oh and my latest project is knitting a book bag to keep said books from being torn/scratched/whatever in my bag (because one must carry a book EVERYWHERE one goes... if only I could figure out a way to read and knit at the same time!!!???)

Another Fab knitting book I discovered brings in another of my favourite things... Knockdown knits inspired by Roller Derby with patterns for slings and broken arm sweaters! It's just such a pity Roller Derby has only really started to happen in Melbourne around the same time that I had to go and have babies and stuff that are supposed to make you all grown up and responsible and shit like that... sucks...

I'd rather be Knitting!

He He He He...

All available from Cafe Press!

Anouk's Crazy Mixed-up Christmas Stocking!!!

I decided that Little Miss needed a Christmas Stocking for impending arrival of afore mentioned Mr Scary-claws... Look I know it's lying to your kids and he makes all the poor kids think they've been bad, but at the same time I have to be careful not to project my irrational fears onto small children!!!

Anyways... I started knitting this yesterday, I looked at a few sock/Xmas stocking patterns that all involved knitting in the round which I have tried and didn't like (or maybe I just bought too long a thingi) or using double-pointed needles which I haven't tried... so obviously anything new = scary!!!

So I'm making it up as I go along with a kind-of picture in my head of what it should end up like... sort of... maybe.

Plus its a way to use some of those 1/2 balls of wool left over from other stuff/impulse yarn buys. Well now I've put it in writing I have to do it! And I've got a deadline on this one so I'd better get onto it!!

Pimp my Shopping Cart!

Stuff

The last thing I want is for this blog to turn into a mummy blog of every minuscule detail of the bubba-doo’s movements... problem is they are kind of all consuming little creatures! So here is a list of things I have done in the last 6 weeks that don’t involve little people and/or domestic chores!

• Read the following books; Cinematherapy: the girls guide to movies for every mood, Me Cheeta, The crowning glory of Calla Lily Poynter, Why men want sex and women need love, it’s my party and i’ll knit if I want to, Our Girls, The autobiography of a fat bride: true tales of a pretend adulthood, the Australian guide to self sufficiency, The lost art of sleep, Veggie patch, Lighten up: 365 ways to lose weight and feel great, Loaded (re-read), Kidwrangling, Weekend knitting, You'd better not cry.

• Started Christmas shopping (coz I’m a girly swat!) which is consisting of approx. 95% books.

• Finished knitting the handle of my super-cool shopping jeep and started the inside lining... just need access to a sewing machine! Knitted two rows of my Cardi that I started about a year ago.

• Got this super cool bag as an early Xmas present from my brother.

• Cleaned out my cupboards/drawers but only actually threw out 2 items of clothing!

• Been to the Doctor, Dentist and had some long overdue waxing attended to!

• Been to my favourite cafe twice.

• Made it into the library three times.

• Watched lots of DVD’s including; Bruno, Dark Knight, several Laverne and Shirleys, Gonzo: the life and work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Annie Lebovitz: Life through a Lens, A lion called Christian, Head On (after re-reading Loaded), LA Ink season 4, Dogs in Space special features disc (where you can hear me ask a question in the popcorn taxi interview bit), Howard Sterns Private Parts, Bucket List, Secret diary of a call girl season 2, Juno (again).

• (Tried to) go for a walk (almost) every day.

• Got rejected for a scholarship.

• Found out I have my first trans-gendered friend and didn’t even know it!

• (Re) planted my veggie patch.

• Had the Flu.

• Had my email account hacked and spammed.

• Discovered Parma Violet lollies in the Gifts from home store.

• Got up to F on my ipod by playing it in song title order.

try not to be distracted by the bump...

Check out my latest knitted creation...

pink and purple striped fingerless gloves/arm warmers... (sorry 'bout the crap photo!)
pity they are too hot now that spring it here!! Here is me wearing them to knit my current project... its a handle for my granny style shopping trolley which I have painted with flames and am lining with leopard skin fake fur!

Pics to follow...

If you want to make the gloves they are peasy;

I used 4.5 mm needles and some “Sean Sheep” wool that I just bought from big W coz the label said it was good for felting (it’s 70% wool/30% Soybean)

CO 20 (or however many it takes to go round your arm... remembering if you’re going to felt it it will shrink a bit)

St st for however long you want them to be (I did it for 144 rows all up because I wanted them to go right up to my elbow)

You can do the stripes however you fancy (or not), mine were 8 rows of each colour.

To make the thumb hole is the only vaguely tricky bit;

On row 117: K 10 then C/O 6 then knit to end (when you do the other hand it’s the opposite eg. K 4, C/O 6 then K to end)

Keep going in St st until long enough to go up to your knuckles (if thats what you want, you might just want them to where youre fingers start... again, up to you!)

When they are as long as you want, C/O then stitch up the sides.

I felted these ones just coz I like felting!

As you can see, these are a pretty straight forward project that you can easily adapt to your own style... just have a play and remember... you can always unravel it!!!

Happy world wide knit in public day!

Go Go Gadget... Knitting Needles?

Could this possibly be the second-best knitting book ever???


I cant decide who I think is cutest... Postman Pat (complete with Black and White Cat of course!), Inspector Gadget... But I would have to say the winner is... Mr. Squiggle! Check out the stoned look eyes!!! too much puffing on Bill Steamshovel methinks!

Unsolicited advise from a novice knitter who really just makes it up as she goes along...

How did I turn this tangled mess...

Into this?

Via this...

See it turns out that learning maths in school really does help with the important things in life...

I am not very good at following instructions, recipes, directions, and as it turns out... knitting patterns, but somehow I usually manage to get there in the end!

I was getting a little bored with the repetitiveness of knitting my cardi (see recent post) and decided I needed to be knitting myself a super-cool laptop bag for my impending arrival (that being my new laptop which you will here more about later!) and have always wanted to try Picture knitting (Intarsia I think it's called). I decided I wanted to go for a bit of a pirate theme and had two different patterns, neither of which were really doing it for me, but I used them for the basis and with the help of my very useful Stitch N Bitch Journal decided to write my own pattern.

Check out the almost finished result which I also felted and with the cheating help of an old jumper turned into a pretty cool bag for a beginner. Hey it may look very unprofessional to some of you... and if anyone asks I was going for the rough homemade look! But I am pretty proud of it, I'm just going to give it another felting and add some zips, and then hope that my Laptop will actually fit into it when it arrives!

So here is some unsolicited knitting advice from a complete novice...

• Yes you can teach yourself to knit from a book.
• When I was teaching myself I just happened to buy this multicoloured yarn which turned out to be really good coz I could see where I was at with it as the colour would change with each row.
• Just get in there and experiment coz you can always undo it!
• Its easier working with medium sized, wooden needles.
• Those fancy yarns that are actually a couple of different things in together make it kind of tricky!
• If your gonna try some Picture Knitting, Knit a few rows of the main colour first so you get past that twisty up stage which is where I was getting all confused!
• I also found twisting the two colours together when changing colours helped keep it strong at the joins.
• If your doing stocking stitch and you cant remember if your up to a Knit or Purl row - if the 'tail' of your wool is at the pointy end then you Purl. if its down the blunt end then you Knit!
• Felting can help to disguise holes.
• You can also say you are a punk knitter and made the holes on purpose!

Don't forget... World Wide Knit in Public day is coming up in June!

Or is That Knit...

Picking up the sticks...

AKA: K is for Knitting!

My latest hobby only started last year when I bought myself a $5 book on knitting from The Warehouse and taught myself to knit. I haven't been doing much of late but picked up the sticks again today... actually it was Vicroads fault for having such a long wait and being right next door to Spotlight! But I had been meaning to get back into it, and of course, have started my most ambitious project to date (in fact all Ive really made so far have been bracelets and a rather wonky bag.)

It's called the Go-everywhere-go-with-everything cardigan which you can see the lovely Debbie Stoller, Editor of BUST magazine wearing on the cover of the bible (AKA: Stitch 'N 'bitch, Pg 96 for the pattern.)



I have heard that knitting can be quite a relaxing pursuit, well we'll see... (as the knitting needles fly across the room!) I'm also not very good at following directions so don't expect too much of me!