She sure is going to travel. I made this as a project for the "Will work for yarn" group on
Ravelry. The incentive was that I got to work on a shawl in my knitting queue with yarn provided by someone else and get paid for my efforts with yarn. Brilliant! I probably wouldn't do this often or for many people, but the yarn supplied was a skein of
Wollmeise Twin in
Blau Tinte and I was paid in
Wollmeise as well. So, I am just waiting for the floods to recede a bit before sending her off on her journey to her new home.
Travelling Woman is an easy pattern to follow. the best thing about the pattern, to me, is the instructions for
upsizing the shawl. I added a few extra rows of stocking stitch to the centre bit and lace repeat to the outer part and voila! a shawl large enough to wrap like a warm hug. It is not as deep as your typical triangle shawl. In fact it blocked out into a shape that resembled a crescent more than a triangle.
Here she is, folded and waiting patiently...
Wollmeise, universal currency for knitters?
Labels: shawl, travellingwoman
Have you seen the news about the floods in Queensland? Well, it's not jsut Queensland that is flooded now. The floods are affecting areas all up and down the coast of Australia. If you haven't heard about the floods, do a google search. You will find some pretty horrific news coverage about lives and belogings lost in the torrent of rain that has hit Australia over the past few weeks.
The Queensland government is appealing for donations - http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/
To date, over $64million have been raised, and I am sure this is not yet enough to cover all the losses and o help the people affected to get back on their feet. Aside from our own personal donation, I have also pledged to give 50% from the sales of ALL my patterns for the month of January to the appeal. I will tally up the sales on 31st January and make the donation on 1st February. I will post a picture of my donation receipt here on the blog. So if you have been mm-ing and aah-ing about buying any of my patterns, now is probably a good time to buy as half of what you pay is going towards the relief fund.
Also, there are auctions popping up everywhere to raise funds for Queenslanders and others affected by the flood. Dig deep, folks, as there are people who have lost everything, for whom every dollar counts!
Labels: Queensland relief
Did you stay up for the fireworks last night? We all sat together for the 9 o'clock fireworks and then Alex went to bed after that. I was surprised that he didn't seem to enjoy them all that much. Chris and I sat up for the midnight fireworks and saw the old year out and greeted the new year.
What's in store for this year?
Knitting-wise, I am going to shop from my stash as much as possible. You may have noticed the knitmeter I have added to the sidebar. I'll be updating it with information as I go along. My target is to knit20km of yarn this year. There, I have said it now.. and I'll have to try. I am rather proud of teh nearly 16km of yarn I knit up last year, but I also probably added more than that to my stash!
I hope to have at least another 3 patterns completed and published. In fact, i am starting off the year ahead! I have a pattern for a pullover and another similar one for a cardigan which I will be publishing later this month. They will be two separate patterns also available as an e-book on Ravelry.
For the store, I am still trying to decide whether I want to focus on the thinner yarns. I first need to use up my stock of thicker yarns I suppose. I am also considering adding a few new products to the store.. more about that later.
This year is Alex's last year in daycare before he goes to "big school" in 2012. I am sure it will be a fun year with lots of surprises. He's come a long way this past year with his reading, writing and counting. At the beginning of this year, he only knew the letters of the alphabet and was only just starting to work out the sounds. He is now able to work out words (most, not all) from their sounds. A year ago, he could count to 10 and was making attempts at counting to 20. Now he's happily counting to over 100, can read numbers up to the hundreds and can do basic addition and subtraction. His ability to reason astounds me. Perhaps I just have low standards.. but I am quite amazed by his ability to work things out. Alex has come a long long way in 2010 and I wonder what he has in store for me in 2012.
Labels: new year
