Tag-You're It

I was tagged in Dishrag Tag-my team is "Downunder Dishies". Unfortunately the box didn't arrive on Wednesday as I could have knit my cloth on the bus trip down to Wakakirri rehearsals. The performance was on Wednesday night so we had 2 round trips to the city on Wednesday. The performance went really well with our school winning the "Best School in Public" award which is judged over the whole day including rehearsals and the night of the performance. Caitlin also got to be one of the school representatives who speak after the performance. She was the understudy for one of her friends who was fairly apprehensive about the whole public speaking thing, so Caitlin was prepared, and she did a great job. We don't find out for another week or two whether we make it into the finals.










Back to the Tag. The box was delivered (to my door by the postie) on Thursday around lunchtime. Here is what I got from Clare:


a huge ball of cream cotton, a ball of teal green Heirloom 8 ply cotton, 2 packets of yummy fudge, and of course, a "dishrag" knitted in cream cotton in moss stitch. It was all lovely, but I had to get cracking! I decided to use the green cotton for my knitted cloth, and chose a pattern from Dishcloth Boutique called Kitchen Cotton which was a pattern based on 1x1 rib.

Here is a picture of what I posted to Melanie on Friday: 2 balls of Sugar 'N Cream cotton, a couple of yummy treats, and my completed cloth. Whew!







I had the opportunity on Thursday to attend a knit-a-long in a nearby town (Stirling). There were only 3 of us, but I thoroughly enjoyed it (although I missed out on afternoon tea because I had to leave to pick up kids from school). I have instructions to bring WIPs, and my Knitpicks needles for some show & tell next week.

At the moment life seems all about "the party" which is in a week's time, but I am also working on the model, or knitting (beanie & socks) when that's not suitable. I went to the Mt Pleasant Wool & Fibre Fair today, but will save details for another post.

Must go watch Dr Who, do dishes, and stitch.

August already??

Apparently it's August........ And I'm not really ready yet. Ron's birthday is in 2 days (luckily he requires very little in the way of preplanning), but Caitlin's 9th birthday in in 2 weeks and 2 days and I have nothing planned as yet. We have the school's Wakakirri performance next week and I have been busy helping with costumes and attending rehearsals. Luke had his first Pedal Prix race on Sunday (it was a 6 hour race) and the 24 (yes, that's 24) hour race in September. We had 2 teams in the primary school category and came 2nd and 11th (we think-the results for anyone who finished after 3rd aren't up yet-160 teams were racing altogether). I have a stitching weekend planned for later in August which will be lovely-stitching, eating, talking, sleeping (and not necessarily in that order) will be a great break. I also have a model for Stitches and Spice to be finished-I posted about it here .

So-what have I been doing? I finished the model for The Gift of Stitching-I think it will be in the next issue. We had 2 weeks of school holidays-which included visits to the library, shopping centre, aquatic centre, Harry Potter movie, grandparents for the kids (and a weekend away for me and Ron), other grandparents staying with us, 5yo birthday party (costume of course). We've had one and a half weeks of school since then-feels like about 5 weeks.... We've bought and read the new Harry Potter book-no queueing for us though-just picking it up at the local Kmart on the Monday.

Knitting-wise has been quietish, although I did knit that tension square, and discovered that I have quite a loose tension. So much so that I had to use 4mm needles to get the correct gauge with the 12ply wool. I fixed up the weird pointyness of the beanie, and unravelled this beanie because it "relaxed"when I washed it to the point that it was unwearable. I skeined the yarn and washed it, reballed it, and have started to reknit it. Oh, and I joined Mystery Stole 3 because no-one can get sucked into the latest thing to join like me! I am still up to Clue 2 (I think Clue 4 has been released) but I am not in a rush to keep up. I'm knitting it in JaggerSpun Zephyr in Ebony (which is a 50%wool, 50% silk laceweight yarn) with some blackish beads (scavenged from my bead stash) and using a Knitpicks Classic Circular in a 3mm size. I told you I have a loose tension. I will take a picture-one day. I even knit the swatch.

Oh, and I knitted my portion of this and signed up for dishrag tag which is a knitting relay of sorts (competitive knitting-very Australian-we have 2 teams). I told you I was a joiner.

Here's a couple of pictures-since I took them back in late June I thought I had better put them up. It's the view from our backyard towards the "non-town" side of us-we live right on the edge of town-literally. I hope to have some more up-to-date pictures for the next blog entry, which hopefully won't be so slow in coming.