With love

I love how this turned out!

I know I'm not the first person to sew thread onto a card so I'm not claiming originality here but it's the first time I've done it and I'm really pleased with the result. I think it will become a new card making favourite of mine.

In fact, Guy is currently on his way home from a 'stag party' in Martinborough (it was a comparatively dignified affair - they played paintball, stayed in nice accommodation, and had a BBQ and played drinking games as opposed to going to a casino and a strip bar for example) for a friend he is going to be a groomsman for next weekend. I'm going to the wedding too so I think I will make their wedding card the same as above but minus the 'XTX' (the 'T' is my version of a hug for Guy, it's a big wide-armed hug). I might have a go doing it on the sewing machine but I also like the uneven handmade-ness of the hand stitching.

This morning Guy rang and told me to look under my bed...

He's a pretty good card maker himself.

Deadline schmedline...

Yes, that's correct. The dish cloths did not make it to the post office on Friday, nor today because the mail isn't cleared on a Saturday so there's no point in sending a parcel until Monday. Except I'll be couriering it, probably for an exorbitant cost. BUT...it'll be worth it. I am so proud of my finished products, not least because they have a LABEL. A last minute idea that contributed to missing my Friday postal deadline which was already extended from Thursday.

Voila!

I LOVE the labels. Guy designed my little blog header for me in January (using a photo I had taken of my scarf with some artfully arranged cherries for the purposes of a header) and on Friday I had the sudden and brilliant idea to get some printed on slightly thicker paper, punch a hole in them, and tie them to the cloths to really impress my Mum. As she doesn't know I have a blog (the only person who does is Guy so, hi to all the people out there not reading) she won't have seen the image before and I secretly think she'll be so impressed she won't believe it's all my (and Guy's) doing.

For a bit of a full-frontal:

I need to learn to cast-off more loosely, my stitches are so tight they make one end smaller than the other.

I have to say I am now convinced about variegated yarn. I think it looks cool. I'm glad I persevered because a few rows after my last post I could see how it was going to work out and I liked it a lot more. This dishcloth has taught me some valuable knitting lessons:

• Even when knit with exactly the same type of yarn on exactly the same size needles as another piece, knitting something in ribbing makes it a lot stretchier.

• Even when knitting more stitches (40 instead of the 34 on the green cloth) and more rows (again, 40 instead of 34 on the green cloth) ribbing something makes it a lot smaller.

• I should have gone 'border, rib, plain, rib, plain, rib [etc], rib, border' or 'border, plain, rib, plain, rib, plain [etc], plain, border' because the way I did it 'border, plain, rib, plain, rib, plain, rib [etc], rib, border' means either end doesn't match because there is a flat bit next to the border and then a raised bit (the bit I'm calling rib) next to the other end's border. If you catch my drift?

The last two are my only disappointments with this cloth, it's a lot smaller than the green one so I wish I had made it longer rather than a square like I did the green one. I didn't compare them until I had cast this one off so I didn't know it was any smaller at all. And I would rather either end matched.

I also made my Mum a card. I used to make cards all the time but I've never been good at drawing so they were always cards that avoided drawing and instead involved sticking squares of cool wrapping paper on the front and the like. However, the price of cards is ridiculous so I bought some WHITE card (I usually always use black) and decided to make her a card. I tried the good-old wrapping paper trick but it looked ugly so I took the plunge and had a go at drawing something.

I like it! I really like the simplicity of it (who knows whether they look more like leaves [they're supposed to be leaves] or stingrays but also, who cares?): the black on white, and the card has a 'linen' texture which also adds a little something something to it.

Earlier in the week I gave this card and treat to a colleague who is very nice and cool who was going in for surgery yesterday. Making this card helped me warm up to the idea of just me, some white card, and a black pigment liner:

She loved it.

I have also just had an idea for a homemade (I often make Guy cards, he's the one person I'd kept the tradition going for in recent years) Valentines card. Not that we're big into Valentines Day but we do celebrate it (last year when he was in Paris at L'Ecole Phillipe Gaulier for a month during February, he told me I had to be at Simply Paris cafe at a certain time on Valentine's day and organised for his barbershop quartet to come and sing to me which was awesome!). If my Valentines Card idea turns out well there will no doubt be pictures. I usually always write 'Made for you by The Ugly Card Company' on the back of my cards as a safeguard - then no one can complain that they're ugly because I can say they're meant to be. But I always aim for them not to be, so fingers crossed.

*I really hate not putting accents on French words that need them (e.g. cafe) but I don't know how to do it, especially on Guy's MacBook, hence why they are missing.

Yet to be convinced

I cast on and started my second dishcloth last night. So far, I'm not convinced by this whole variegated yarn thing. It looks like two chunks of different colours that I wouldn't say are that complimentary. I guess it's because my piece isn't very wide.

But I shall perservere because I am determined to get it finished. I have decided I can push my deadline out to Friday afternoon. I'm taking a day in lieu on Friday for the event I worked at all day on Sunday so I plan to knit as much as I can tonight and then finish it off on Friday and post the parcel Friday afternoon. Tomorrow night if the weather is fine (it's not looking so promising at the moment, it's gotten colder and there was a bit of rain around midday) I'm going to an outdoor movie (otherwise known as Film by Starlight) at the Dell in the Botanic Gardens. It's Dirty Dancing!

I finished the first dishcloth on Monday night at Monday night knitting. It was a big night in terms of numbers. There were heaps of people there, lots of new people and some people I haven't seen there for a while. It was great, hopefully it continues!

I bought my Mum's other present today that my sister and I are going halves in. She loves Pohutakawa trees but can't plant one down South because it's too cold down there for it to survive in Winter. So I got her two of the smaller Pohutakawa blossom shaped aluminium wall hangings from Abstract Designs on Cuba St (the smaller ones aren't on this page but they are just a smaller $32 version of the bigger $110 ones). I hope she likes them. I like a lot of the other shapes they have in the store as well, maybe I'll put one on my list for my birthday in June.

I hope I can, I hope I can...

One dishcloth down, one to go...can I do it? I hope I can!

Dance of the Dish Cloth

My apartment smells of cask wine and is littered with air beds. Thank you the Sevens.

Not being a big rugby or alcohol fan, I spent some time under the shade of a tree out in the beautiful weather today making some progress on the first of Mum's two birthday dishcloths. Pretty much the same pattern as my scarf but with a border.

I'd better do some more tonight or I'm only going to finish one before my Thursday deadline. I have this yarn to make another with.

I'm thinking thin rib with a border, just because it needs to be something quick and easy. I have no idea how it will make the variegated-ness look.

Tomorrow I have to work at an event called Te Ra O Te Raukura in the Hutt to do with my job, so hopefully the weather stays lovely. It's going to be an early morning and busy day but hopefully an enjoyable one, I'm told the fried scones and melon with ice cream are must-have treats - not really in line with our heart health message but one won't hurt...

Lastly, today was Waitangi Day. Maybe the weather was a toast to the future of New Zealand. I hope so.

Call me knitter. Hat knitter.

I did it! The hat is finito!

I went into Knit World on Thursday at lunchtime and said to one of the ladies there, 'I need help.' To which she replied, 'Don't we all love?' (in a nice and amusing way). Then I pulled my hat out, explained my need to switch to DPNs and my other need to learn how to use DPNs and she sat me down at the table, put the stitches on the DPNs and showed me how to knit using them. It was so easy! Although I definitely prefer circulars because I got annoyed by the sticky-out-ness of the DPNs, although maybe that was because mine were very long for the small amount of stitches I had (they didn't have any shorter needles). I could have finished my hat there and then at Knit World (the lovely lady who helped me said I should because then I wouldn't have to buy the needles) but I had to get back to work.

So last night after a very filling dinner of curry from Little India with my flatmate and some of her friends she is going to the rubgy Sevens with this weekend, I rushed home in time to watch the season premiere of Season Six of Project Runway, and finished the hat while watching. I got into Project Runway last year about halfway through the season so it was interesting to watch the very first episode of a new season. I felt it went a bit fast (although I only had my eye half on the show until the runway showing of the garments because I was concentrating on my hat) because after the showing when the judges were critiquing the garments I found it hard to remember who made what. Am looking forward to following the show for the next few months though.

I decided to go with the tassle on the hat as per the pattern even though I thought it might look a bit dorky. It was fun to make as well, very clever. And it made me feel like I'd fully completed the hat. I tried it on and it fit! Then when I got home after work today I hand washed it with the B_E_E delicate fabric wash (and panicked for a moment because even though I had used such lukewarm water it was pretty much cold, I thought I'd dyed the white wool blue because the blue fluff from the blue wool was making the white wool seem like it had a blue-ish tinge, having removed it though and rolled it up in a towel, I can safely say this is not the case). This is the hat being model by an upside down bowl sitting on top of a cup (a highly technical contraption created because I had nothing else head-shaped):

This hat model has since been fired though because I felt it might be stretching it too much, so the hat is now sitting in the hot water cupboard with a scrunched up tea towel inside it because I didn't like the thought of it drying flat. Yup, I'm VERY protective of my hat. I have just this minute decided to call her Nellie.

And here is a view of her from the top:

There will no doubt be photos of me wearing it when it's dry.

In other news, a building I can see out the window of my apartment that I believe is part of the hospital (which has had a big new flash part built) is being demolished before my very eyes.

This morning before I left for work:

This evening when I got home from work:

And thus the scenery changes incrementally day by day.

Inside Out and DPN Drama

So it turns out, I am knitting my hat inside out. Someone at knitting last night confirmed that usually when you knit a hat the outside is on the outside of the needles and the inside on the inside. But it doesn't matter because I can just turn it in the right way when it's finished (which is what I thought everyone must do with hats). I have no idea how I managed to do this.

I was SO close to finishing my hat last night and I was at Monday night knitting circle so had experts on hand to help me, except that I got to the last decrease and the pattern says "You can switch to double pointed needles for this round, although I managed to awkwardly knit this round with the 16" circular." Of course, I thought: if she could do it, so can I. But I can't. It's stretching the stitches too much and I'm only a quarter of the way round. I must knit tighter than she does. So it's off to Knit World in my next free lunchbreak to buy some double pointed needles and hopefully get one of the Knit World ladies to help me move the stitches onto them and show me how to knit with them.

The end is so neeeear! I just want to get there.

In the meantime, I shall begin my next project which has a strict time limit on it. It's my Mum's birthday on the 18th of February and as she thinks it's quite amusing that I have started knitting, I am going to knit her two dishcloths (all going to plan). Because really, knitted dishcloths? Why do these exist?!

I can't remember how I heard about knitted dishcloths but it was on some knitting site or blog somewhere in the last few months (I had definitely not heard of them before). I had no idea what they would be made out of because obviously, it wouldn't be wool. So I googled to find out what they are made of...turns out you can get 100% cotton yarn. Of course. I have so much to learn... Anyway, then I googled 100% cotton yarn and limited the search to NZ and found Yarnz who sell the Peaches and Creme range. So I contacted Nanette who turns out to be lovely and who attends the knitting group at JOY of Yarn's Scarlet Oak Cottage in the Wairarapa. I know this because she works very near me so to save me paying postage she kindly brought the yarn into her work and I went and collected it yesterday at lunchtime.

Mum is going to be just delighted...

I'm excited to try knitting with self-striping (I think it's called variegated?) yarn. As a side note, I can't believe I am calling it 'yarn' because it has always seemed like such an American word to me but now that I know you can't just call all yarn 'wool' because it's not all wool, I've had to adopt it.

So the count down is on! 2 knitted dishcloths in less than two weeks (the postal system seems to be very slow from Wellington to Hurunui so I'd better post them the weekend before the 18th to be safe). Obviously, there will be regular progress updates.

Oh! And I showed my Practice Skirt to Ms. Pattern Drafter at work yesterday and she said I did a really good job for my first zip! I was meant to sew the interfacing pieces together before sewing them to the waistband but oh well, now I know for next time. I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I wasn't so happy with the fit but I have it in my head now that I can just take one of the simple bought skirts I already have, trace the outline, add a seam allowance and make a pattern myself...it sounds so easy. Surely.