Pattern: One Skein Wonder from Glampyre Yarn: My handspun, hand dyed merino, very soft. I dyed the top, spun it up and navajo plyed. I was delighted to find it knit to gauge. Needles: 5mm Circs for body and 3.75mm circs for ribbing and moss stitch sleeve detail. Comments: This was a very fast knit for me, I reckon it took me about 6 hours all up, and I'm not a superfast knitter by any standards. The worst bit was picking up stitches for the ribbing, I did pick up too many and I think this has been one of the factors in why the ribbing isn't as 'pulled in' as I would like. I also should have used 3.5mm circs, but I don't have any. I'll be away for a week, attending the Geelong Textile Fibre Forum YAY!. I've been looking forward to this for 6 months. Today is AFL Grand Final Day. A great excuse to eat savloys LOL

Kiri Shawl - FINISHED!!

Pattern: Kiri (12 repeats of chart 2) from All Tangled Up Needles: 5mm Circs. I used a 7mm straight needle to cast off. Finished size: I haven't measured, but it is wider than my wing span so I'd say it is around 170cm wide and it reaches down past my bottom, so it is a nice size Yarn: My handspun 2 ply from a locally grown merino cross fleece. Spun in the grease. Comments: This was a fun knit, and as a relatively new knitter (since January 05) by far my largest project yet. I highly recommend using a much larger needle and the pattern's instructions for casting off, this way you will get enough stretch to get the points on the edge (the points in the photo aren't showing up too well because I wore it yesterday and they tended to curl.) And, I found this cluster of pods on our walk tonight.

Kiri is finished and blocking. No full shot photos til then, but here's a glamour shot to tide you over.

Another day, another gallery opening. Geez life is tough LOL. Cowwarr Art Space is hosting a travelling exhibition of works by Jim Thalassoudis. His paintings are of the sky; cloud formations, dramatic sunsets and bushfire affected heavens. I enjoyed the works immensely. I also had the chance to meet Stephen Gallagher who I mentioned yesterday. I am sad to say I had a go at him about his lack of web presence, sorry about that Stephen. He tells me he is going to create some larger scale works using bigger mesh. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with! Stephen informed me of an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria called Everlasting - The Flower in Fashion and Textiles 26 August 2005 - 2 April 2005. Sounds like Riscy and I will need to plan another Melbourne weekend excursion. And to round this post out, here is a photo I took this afternoon of a Four O'Clock* folding up for the night:

This is what Riscy's mum calls them. I think they are californian poppies though.

Well, to motivate myself to finish Kiri, I've purchased the One Skein Wonder pattern from Glampyre. I'm not sure whether it will flatter me (busty as I am), but I'm keen to give it a shot. My first knitted item with sleeves. I swatched the yarn I want to use, and it appears I'm right on gauge, pretty remarkable given this is one of my handspun yarns, this gauge stuff is all new to me!

We went to a marvelous gallery opening last night at the Latrobe Regional Gallery*. It was quite an extravaganza with three exhibitions opening at once and tonnes of people. Contemporary Leftovers - Rehgan De Mather Unstrung - The Bead in Contemporary Art Bushwaters, gums and gardens. A close look - Marilyn Close. I was very impressed by De Mather. I'd seen some earlier work before but his new stuff is much more compelling. His use of texture and layers really sucked me in and I plan to go back for a second look. Unstrung was a group exhibition curated by the Director of the Latrobe Regional Gallery - Louise Tagart. I particularly enjoyed the peices by Anna Davern, vessels with delicate, organic protusions like growths or tendrils reaching out. Also wonderful, was a vase made of steel mesh embellished with beads and embroidery by Stephen Gallagher. (Article and Link) And suprising, was Neon Beads by Patricia Harper, a string of neon beads, you can see it at this link, third photo down. And to draw this little review to a close, I'l like to say that bush and landscape painting is not all bad news. Marilyn Close has opened my eyes to how wonderful it can be, her ability to capture the bush, textures of bark, light in a garden. Quite wonderful. *For the sake of disclosure I must add that I am a community rep on the LRG advisory committee.

I ventured into the garden in the fading light this evening and was delighted to find a beautiful rose blooming:

E'toile de Lyon is Tea rose, quite an old variety having been released in 1881. In my garden this rose is short and sprawling and currently covered in buds. It wins the 'first rose of the season' prize by a country mile although I was getting blooms on Margaret Merrill up until I pruned her a month ago. I still have quite a few roses to prune. Perhaps this weekend :-) Edited to add... !!!STOP PRESS!!! I just came across this art quilter, Angela Moll (thanks to Wee Wonderfuls). Had to share.

An unfortunate mistake required the heartstopping decision to take Kiri off the needle. But every cloud has a silver lining 'cause this allowed the opportunity to get a preview :-)

I only took her back 4 rows, but given the number of stitches at this stage (last repeat before I launch onto the border) I have been set back a considerable amount... I don't think I'm gonna have her finished by Friday. I've made more mistakes in this repeat than I have since I started on the second chart. I can't work it out. I shouldn't knit when tired is probably a good lesson though. We had our second meeting with our architect today regarding the renovations. Scary stuff, but so far it is all sounding good. He will get back to us in 2-3 weeks with some concepts. My work mates made fun off me because we are getting an architect to do this for us when we are theoretically capable of doing it ourselves (y'know, being engineers and all). But, it would take us 5 years to get this project finished because we are too absorbed with other stuff and frankly our relationship will be all the better because we have chosen NOT to do this on our own. Believe me.

Proof:

This is all a bit experimental so it doesn't sit perfectly flat, but I think I can fix that with a bit of thoughtful blocking :-) The Paynesville Spin In went well. There must have been about 50 people there including two men, David from our guild and another guy from Phillip Island who spins for his wife. I think David took up spinning to keep up the yarn for his wife too, he tells us she was the fastest knitter he ever saw, he has bought in some of her work and it is beautiful. The Spin In was held in St Peters by the Sea Anglican church, a beautiful location. I wish I'd taken my camera. A funny thing, I was spinning away and two ladies approached me and asked why the thread doesn't break, I said that I was putting twist into the fibre and that makes it strong enough. Then one of them said, 'how do you get the twist in?' I was polite, but holy crap! I'm sitting there with a spinning wheel at a spinning guild event.

The Latrobe Valley Spinners and Handweavers Guild has 12 members. I spend my Wednesday lunch hours with them and it is heaps of fun :-) I'm the youngest by a long way, which is cool. Today I lamenting that I would have to wind the next skein of my lace wool so I can finish off the Kiri shawl. The last skein took me all night to wind into a ball. Anyway, soon I was armed with the guilds swift and ball winder. I rushed home from work today and in about 45mins ... Ta daaaa....

I also wound the lace wool and I couldn't resist winding the recent purple/silky yarn... I have to stop because I heard that you shouldn't keep your yarn wound up for too long. Spoil sports. This Saturday half of us from the guild are going on a road trip to the Paynesville Spin-in. Yay!! I should make up a mixed CD to entertain us... what sort of music would be suitable for a bunch of 80 year old ladies? LOL Did I tell you that I put my collagraphs in an open printmaking exhibition which opens on Friday night? I think I did... Anyway, I dropped them off yesterday and now I'm really looking forward to the opening... I love openings :-)