day four - honeymooning.

after trawling through my phone last night, i realized i had a whole bunch of honeymoon photos i most definitely hadn't shared over here yet...
so please bare with me, while i share a whole heap of photos!!

flying into beautiful brisbane, our first stop and where we spent three of our nine honeymoon nights.

we were greeted with treats once we arrived and checked into our hotel.

so very spoilt, and ever so well looked after!

the room i'd booked had access to the executive lounge (sometimes not reading the fine print has perks ha!) which had snacks, CHEESE and wine in the evenings. we made sure to take full advantage ha ha!

and yes, you'd better believe there was knitting getting done on our honeymoon too!

our stay in brisbane coincided with the release of the new Star Wars film...

we were at the midnight screening. and i managed to only snooze once ha ha!

after catching a few z's before check out, we jumped back onto a plane, heading to cairns, where upon disembarking, we grabbed a hire car and cruised down to mission beach. we found some accommodation there for the night, and in the morning, jumped onto a water taxi to our abode for the next five nights...

bedarra island.

what a spectacular place! beautiful scenery as well as amazing service, and the food... so delicious!

we spent so much time relaxing, which was just what the doctor ordered after a busy year of work, oh and that wedding thing too ha ha.

we also made good friends with the wildlife. skinks and geckos everywhere! though these skinks were a little bigger than the ones i normally come across back home ha ha.

every walk along every path was punctuated with sounds of these little guys running away from you through the scrub. a little terrifying to be honest!

oh and the food!! it was divine! and the best part was not having to make any decisions about what to cook ha ha!
three meals a day, planned out, cooked, served and cleared. heaven!

there was also one lunch we were lucky enough to have packed up, along with some towels and snorkeling gear, to take along with us to a completely different island. all to ourselves! so lucky!

we also splashed out on a helicopter ride transfer, from the island, back to cairns airport.

what a way to travel!
the pilot was super friendly and knowledgable and talked us through everything as we were flying around.

hope you've gotten to the end of this supremely photo heavy post! once I get home, and have access to my laptop, i'll try and write up a little post about our wedding too. working backwards ha ha!

have you ever been on a helicopter? what has been your favourite holiday ever?

day three - work in progress.

today i thought i'd talk a little about what's on my needles at the moment...

this little beauty has been on the go for a wee while now, and is definitely high on my list of things to finish this year. hopefully this month if i'm being honest.
i'm keen as mustard to wear this one!!

after a little faux pas, where i forgot to include half of the shaping, which involved much ripping to fix, i feel back on track. hopefully that means i can get it finished up asap, and get to wearing it!

what are you working on at the moment?

day two - second.

my second finish of the year wasn't one of those on my to-be-finished list... it was an all new project. a procrastinatory project if you will.
you see, i'd just realized i had forgotten to include a whole heap of shaping into the garment i'd been working on, so naturally, rather than tackling the bull by the horns, i put my hand up to knit this little blouse for work. with a tight, two week deadline. as you do....



the emmer top, is written by sarah hatton, and features in the book 'simple shapes, summerspun and purelife revive'
it's knit up in the purelife revive, a dk cotton/silk/viscose blend, with all of the fibers being from recycled sources.

this little blouse, knit up incredibly quickly! i managed to churn it out in a week and a half, though it was the only thing i was working on for that time...



when i spotted this pattern in the book, i was a little worried about how the neckline would sit. on the model in the book, it seemed a bit gapey, and i thought it might flap open at inopportune moments ha ha.
i think it definitely sits ok though, and i'm seriously contemplating making this little number up again... or potentially absconding with this sample version ha ha.

have you finished anything recently? what's been your quickest garment project ever?

day one - february.

ok so it is the first of feb... an entire month into the new year already... where exactly did that month go?

i had this grand idea, that i might try my hardest to blog every day this month... being the shortest month and all, what a cinch!
however, i'm currently overseas! sans laptop. blogging from my phone is always a little tricky (apologies for any weirdness in the formatting of this post!)
we'll just see how i go i guess ha ha!

i feel like i have lots to blog about this month, lots to catch you all up on from the last couple of months. fingers crossed i can get it together!

there are a few big things on the agenda this month. i've got a knitting project that i'm hoping to get off my needles and onto my body AND i'm lined up to teach a couple of classes on crochet this month. i'm equal parts excited and nervous ha ha.

hopefully i'll be back here tomorrow!

having a crack.

yesterday i woke up feeling tetchy.
and the longer i was awake, the tetchier i felt. checking social media and emails. having a shower.
in my tetchy state, i flopped back onto the bed, checked social media and email again, and began playing a game on my phone.

now the real reason for my tetchiness? i was stroppy as i felt that i hadn't had a chance to do anything i really wanted to get done this month... working full time these past couple of weeks, coupled with my days off being quite warm had left me ridiculously pooped!
yet here i was, with time to spare, playing a game on my phone?? how ridiculous!

i dragged my butt off the bed, chucked on some clothes and got to work. tidying the kitchen and bedroom a little, watering the plants in preparation for another hot one, AND something i've been thinking about since the weekend...
solar dyeing.



on saturday morning, i picked up a veggie box from rohan, aka wholelarderlove and inside was a generous handful of walnuts. still in their shells! once i got into work, i hunted down a hammer, and got to cracking, revealing the delicious nut inside. but what to do with the shells?
i contemplated taking them home for the worm farm, but then remembered back to all of the instagram pictures i've been seeing the last couple of months of folks using natural dyeing ingredients and the heat of the sun in a jar to get some awesome dyed yarn and fabric!



so back to yesterday morning, and after doing those few chores, i set to setting up the dye jar above.
winding off my ball of yarn into a skein, giving it a good soak, and layering the walnut shells above and below it in the jar, topping it off with water and setting it in a nice sunny spot on the front doorstep.

now, will i have the patience to wait a while longer before pulling it all apart to see the results? hopefully!
though after the stinker of a hot day we had yesterday, the yarn is already looking quite a bit darker than it was when i took these pictures yesterday morning... will definitely be posting an update when it's ready!

oh and i guess i should share some technical details? or as many as i have... the yarn i used was leftover 4ply shilasdair from this hat in colourway 'fleece cloud', a non-dyed yarn. there was probably about 15-20g of yarn left from the 50g skein.
i used approximately the same weight of walnut shells, and tried to bash them up relatively small.
i didn't premordant or anything, other than soaking the skein in water. hopefully that doesn't mean all of the beautiful colour will run out when i rinse it!
this is a one litre jar and everything fit pretty perfectly...

have you tried natural dyeing before? or gotten one of Ro's veggie boxes? what do you do with walnut shells?

first.

the first of five current works-in-progress that are on the fast track in 2016 to get finished.
as much as i want to be all, new year, new projects, i started a LOT of things last year (and the year before *ashamed face*) that i really do want to get done.

anywho, back to these finished beauties...



now to tell you the truth, this wasn't a project i started last year... it was one my ma did. she started them mid way through last year, and got the large majority of one sock done and dusted.
in october however, she had a fall, resulting in a break to her elbow and shoulder and no more knitting!
one thing led to another, and unfortunately, she passed away just before christmas.



the last time i saw her, we had a discussion about me taking over the knitting of these socks, as they were cast on as a birthday present for her brother, who is turning 70 midway through this month.
so takeover i did, and boy did that tight deadline put a rocket under my bum to get them done!

now, my ma and i, we have quite different tensions, so these are two very different socks. i realised quite early on, that if i wanted them to match, i definitely should have changed my needles to a size or two bigger. but i kind of like the idea of using the same needles for each sock... and that they're quite different in size. my ma's brother will always be able to tell the sock that was knitted by his big sister, and the one knitted by his grand-niece.



ma knew her sock pattern by heart, so i had to do a fair bit of reading of the sock she had already knit to ensure we had similar heels, cast-ons and toes.

it was such an honour to continue on with this pair of socks that my beautiful ma had started.

stay tuned for hopefully quite a few more finishes as we travel through these first few weeks of the year...

more radio silence...

things have been busy around here...

there was a little of this...



and this...



and all the christmas stuff too!

a funeral tomorrow and hopefully, then a smooth and uneventful end to 2015.
i've got a brain full of blog posts, but am having a little trouble getting them out and onto the screen. hopefully soon everything will come out ha ha.

how's your december been?