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When you have no time to knit...
You make time. Wait, isn't that what everyone does? Life's been frightfully busy here. If it is not one thing, it is another. For a start, Alex has a social life. That's right. My 3 1/2 year old has friends and as a result of that has parties to go to. Sometimes I wish I could take him and leave him there so that i can have a few hours to do the grocery shopping or clean the house, but, as I have also been reminded, this stage will not last long. Soon I will be wishing that I am allowed to stay and see what goes on at the parties! Right-o. Enjoy it while it lasts, eh? Alex loves parties. it's the only time when he gets "party food"- sweets, chips and other "sometimes" foods. I still remember when he was still naive and had no idea that gummi babies are to be eaten. He was offered some, he chose two colours and was marching them along in the sandpit like little toy men. These days, he knows they are edible and that they can be quite delicious. There's no keeping him away from them now. the downside to not having party food at home is that wehn we go to parties, he likes to hover near the food table. I often wonder whether other parents think we don't feed him. Then I look at his little pot belly and his round cheeks and realise that nobody could, in their right minds, call him a starved child. Just look at this face!  That picture was taken a couple of weeks ago. He was modelling one of his new "knit by mummy" jumpers. A better look at the jumper:  Yes, I know, it is a little on the large side. You know what, this child grows like a weed!! It looks big now, but give it a year, or even half a year and it will fit just right. Since it's coming to the end of winter, I am hoping that it will last through next winter as well. I have been asked for the pattern, but I never did plan to write it up. Perhaps I will, but it won't be for a while yet as I need to get through some of the other patterns I have sitting around first. I used Bendigo Woolen Mills' Luxury 8ply in Stone and Oceanic to knit this. It took about 1.5 balls of Oceanic and about 1/4 of a ball of Stone for the stripes. Love love love the colour combination and I think I'll knit him something else in these colours. The design is simple. It is knit from the top down in one piece. The neckline is a simple placket neckline and the shaping is just your basic top down raglan with a few simple cables thrown in. I added ribs down the side to help with growth room. Who knows how rotund the kid will be in a year's time! So, not only have I been busy with the knitting needles - more about that later - but I have also had to sew Alex some clothes. Purely out of necessity. Chris's grandmother, Lola, passed away a couple of weekends ago. Lola was 102 years old, so she's had pretty good innings, I think. Sadly, I never managed to have much of a relationship with her as she did not speak English well, and I did not speak Tagalog well. I still don't speak Tagalog well at all. I understand some words and phrases and can guess what is being said but most of the time I need an interpreter to communicate with Lola. Lola, may you rest in peace.  For the viewing and the funeral, Alex needed black clothes. Now, do you think it is possible to find basic black pants and shirts anywhere? No, of course not. Everything black in the shops is plastered with some sort of licenced picture of Ben 10 or Disney characters or Mr Men or something. Even the button up shirts had stuff across the back and/or front. Don't people make plain clothes anymore? Don't people buy plain clothes anymore? So I sat at the sewing machine on the night before the viewing and made Alex a pair of black corduroy pants and a black corduroy jacket. Poor planning on my part meant that I did not have any black/white fabric with which to make the jacket lining. Oops. The jacket was lined in blue fabric (with colourful trucks, no less) and I hoped it would not be too noticeable.  Alex had a great time at the wake playing with his cousins. We don't see them very often, but every time we do, I am reminded of how much fun it is to have cousins. We really should make a point of keeping in contact with them more often. Seeing each other's updates on Facebook really isn't quite the same. Alex was qute attached to a coupel of his cousins and he spent hours playing with them outside. Look how red his cheeks were, and it wasn't even a hot day!  Okay, on the knitting front, what else have I been up to? I realised that I never did announce on my blog the launch of two patterns. First there's the Lazy Sunday bedsocks.   It features a spiraling rib on the leg and short rows on the heels and toes. There is absolutely no seaming or grafting needed on this design. It is knit using 8ply (DK) wool and is great for lounging around at home. Designed to be a comfortable fit, and loose enough to not "strangle" your feet and ankles whilst firm enough to stay on all night or all day, as the case may be. It is a downloadable purchase on Ravelry. I think it is an ideal introduction to socks - no grafting to worry about and no teeny tiny stitches on teeny tiny needles to manage. The other pattern that I neglected to announce here on the blog is the Hoo hat.  It comes in two variations, with the other having a band of owls around the hat.  This design was originally inspired by the baby owl vest by Jodi Haraldson. I thought theuse of cabels to knit the owls was really clever, and made it up to knit a hat, but the pattern sat on my computer for months and months waiting for me to get round to tidying it up and having it tested. Finally, a couple of months ago, I got my act together and now the pattern is published. My pattern is knit on 10ply (worsted) weight yarn and is sized ffrom newborn to adult. It is a pretty cushy hat. Here's one of my nephew modeling the hat:  Isn't he a cutie! He's wearing it with the ribbing folded up. There's lots of stretch and plenty of room for growth. that's in teh smallest size, and I think it will probably fit him till next year. He was only about 4 months old at the time and has since grown heaps. The last time I saw him with the hat was at Lola's funeral, and it still fitted well, with room. Have I ever mentioned I love "room for growth"? No use spending all that time and effort knitting somethign only to have it fit for all of 2 or 3 months, right? Besides, I think little boys look kinda cute in oversized clothes, or maybe that's just my excuse. Also, I did not announce the re-launch of the Scallops on the Bias hat. I took it off the store for a couple of months while I modified it to fit in with my pattern template and while I was at it, I added more sizes and instructions for an alternate crown. The new crown looks like this  I have seen it knit in both solid and variegated colourways and both work well with the pattern. It is now sized from newborn to adult. Okay, that's it for teh sales spiel. no more patterns to talk about, but it's not the end of teh knitting news. Yup, I have been a busy little bee! I finally completed my regia socks. Which Regia socks? These ones  I started them back in 2008 and then lost the mojo to finish them, so they have been sitting around in their half finsihed state for about two years. Finally got round to finishing them, and they're a great fit. I can't remember what the pattern is called. it's a Fibertrends one and it's got somethign to do with railway lines or tracks or something of that sort. Having finally tackled that sock, I felt more confident to sign up for the testing of Margaret's Royal Pair socks. I am midway through the second sock now. Now that i have found my "happy knitting place" with this pattern, it is working up quickly and error-free.  I boo-booed on this sock and the leg has 2 repeats of the chart instead of three and I made the second set of twisted cable stitches too long. On the second sock, I knitted two repeats again but fixed up the error of having the cables too long. So I have two socks that won't match, but that's okay. We can all be Dobby sometimes, right? I am really enjoying knitting this. It's a brilliant design. Labels: knitting, life, patterns, sewing
The long overdue post
A lot has happened in the last couple of months. Where do I start? Chris left his old job, and started a new one. There was a bit of uncertainty while he looked for a new job but he found a new one quickly. He wasn't dismissed. He left, in case you're wondering, because things just weren't so pleasant anymore. I am pleased that he seems much happier to go to work now and comes home a happier man. Happy husband/Daddy makes for happy wife/child. I have been busy. The project I am working on didn't go so well once it was in production and I have been working hard, osmetimes late at night supporting users, testing patches, etc. Pretty much doing the things I normally do, and more. That has now calmed down too. Thank goodness. I was not sure I could handle much more stress. In that time I found a white hair. Oh my! I hope it was just stress and not old age. I am not that old yet, am I? I haven't found another, but to be honest, I am not looking that hard either. If you see one (or two or three), please don't tell me. I don't want to know! As for Alex.. well, as you would probably have guessed from the previous post, he is growing up quickly. He likes painting and drawing, and gluing and folding, but not cutting, apparently. There is something about cutting that frustrates him. He hates it and won't do any craft that requires cutting, or so I am told. He is also slightly obsessed with cutting straight lines and gets frustrated when his little fingers can't manage it. That said, he does have a "thing" for straight lines and orderliness. Hmm.. I am nto so sure that this child is related to me after all. Orderliness is what I am not! Aside from work, I have also been very busy knitting and sewing. I found a kit to make this at my local Salvos shop:  It only cost me $9 and the only thing I had to supply aside from thread was the cotton batting inside. Alex loves it and calls it his duck blanket. It really is Mother Goose, but he thinks it's a duck and who am I to argue with toddler wisdom? It was completed in one day and easier than I expected. Don't look too closely, though. The applique work is really dodgy, despite it all having been cut out for me and all I had to do was sew. It's also not bound at the sides like a "real quilt" normally is. I sewed it all together (inside out) leaving a gap and turned it right side out and then top-stitched it. The layers were then tied together with bits of thread. A bit of a cheat but an effective one! My binding skills are crap, despite having watched dozens of tutorials on youtube. I am now working on a shawl (which can be used as a lap blanket).  I am using some handspun Blue-faced leicester (hand-dyed by me, of course) which I had plied with two strands of commercially produced cashmere/silk. Then.. horror of horrors, I ran out and it was still too small for a shawl. So I had to find another yarn to go with it and finally settled on this:  I am way past that point now, having completed about 10 repeats of the pattern. I am basing it on the Kiri Shawl buy Polly Outhwaite, but making it a square instead of a triangle. It's actually working out quite well. I have a gazillion stitches on the needles now though and each round is taking me longer. I think I will give up soon, maybe when I reach twelve repeats of the pattern. I still need to make sure I have enough yarn to finish the edging. I'd hate to run out again and have this look like a scrappy shawl, which it should not be. More recently I have also been dreaming up another simple pattern for a hat. this time it's a girly hat.  It's pretty simple and can be knitted up in a day or two. I took longer because of many interruptions and also feeling the need to concentrate on the shawl, which must be finished and blocked by the end of November as it is a gift for someone very special to Chris and I. I'll have to fine-tune the pattern and get it test-knitted. The yarn I used for this hat is actually a "seconds" lot from my store. the brown part has spots that are darker than the rest, and so it is a "seconds". I actually don't mind that and I think it's not very noticeable, and it goes well with the white/cream spots. I have been spinning too, but don't have that much to show for it. This one I call "Pure Dark Chocolate"  Spun from Bond fleece purchased from Shiloh Wool. It’s deliciously soft, which is, to me, so unusual for Corriedale, but I guess Bond is very special Corriedale. It is bred to have finer fleece than your run-of-the-mill Corriedale. It is approximately 24 to 25 microns and I didn’t think it would spin up so nicely, but it did. It’s going to be a scarf for Alex as he wants a scarf to be “just like you, Mummy”. Then there is this one which I spun for a customer, who is also a friend.  The hand-dyed superfine merino top is from Selah. It's not one of mine. It was a joy to spin as it really is quite soft. I navajo-plied it to keepthe colours together. I would imagine that it would stripe madly across whatever Anna decided to knit with it. I love how bright the colours are. they're not "my colours" but I did enjoy spinning them and just looking at the colours make me happy. The yellow is such a cheerful yellow and the reds and blues are so bright. That's all I have energy for today.. but I do have more to post later. Labels: Alex, Christmas, knitting, life, sewing, spinning
Enough to clog your arteries
So I didn't tell you about our deep frying extravanganza a few weeks ago. My sister-in-law was given a deep fryer as a wedding present and we decided to try it out.  Onion rings  Chicken wings  Spring rolls  Wontons (dumplings) Those were SERIOUSLY the best chicken wings I have had in a loooong time. It's my sister-in-law's sister-in-law's recipe. It's sweet, salty, crispy and wonderful all at once. For teh onion rings, Chris found a recipe for beer batter online and we used that. They were good too, but not as good as the wings. Sssshhh.. don't tell Chris that ;) Alex loved the spring rolls. What am I saying? Alex loves spring rolls all the time. He insisted that eh wanted a spring roll that day, so we gave him one. He fells asleep eating it but refused to relinquish his hold on it. When I tried to extract it from his greasy little fist, he batted me away with his free hand and moved the springroll to hide it behind his head.  All this while his eyes were closed!  Yes, that is a springroll he is holding behind his head! All that greasiness makes me queasy just looking at the photos, but I can't help but regret that I didn't indulge in another chicken wing or two! I have been rather busy lately. I have done some spinning and putting the fruits of my labour up for sale on Etsy. This is the latest:  I call it flame thrower. It's a lovely hank of squishiness that is typical of merino wool. The colours don't photograph as well as I would have liked as it is a deep intense read with blue and yellow higghlights. It's not as cherry-ish as the picture shows. I have another hank that is just under 300m in length that will be listed tomorrow or the day after. It's a softly spun skein of single ply yarn from hand-dyed pure Corriedale wool. Recently I participated in a swap on Ravelry. I sent out a skein of handdyed alpaca in girly pink tones. I received these balls of wooly pleasure:  Mmmm.. what shall I make with it? I do have other sewing news but I'll leave that for another day. Labels: Alex, etsy, life, spinning
I can't believe he is one already...
Where has the year gone? Remember this?  That was last year. This is this year.  Alex turned one yesterday and all of a sudden, with his new hair cut and new found confidence, he seems like a big boy and no longer the wee baby I knew. He now walks holding on to us with only one hand. Before I know it, he will be toddling along on his own. The thought of that brings a little tear to my eye. He's growing so quickly, I can barely keep up. Selfishly, I wish he'd stay a baby for a little longer, but I am also glad that he has grown and developed so well over the past year. I was going to have a Christmas post, but did not find time... so here it is... It was Alex's first Christmas, and boy, was he spoilt!  He had a ball wandering around the in-laws' house, even managing to find the stairs and climbing halfway up. Here he sits amongst his mini mountain of presents  I'd like to say that I had nothing to do with it, but the truth is that I am partially responsible. I thought I would stick to the "only one present" rule, but that didn't really happen. From my parents in-law, he received a Tonka ride-on toy and a whole lot of new clothes. from my sister-in-law and her fiance, he received some musical instruments (which he loves!) and some bath toys. My parents bought him the Magna Doodle toy. Chris' cousin and his wife bought Alex the Mr Potato-head toy and we bought him a shape sorter and some books. So.. is he spoilt or is he spoilt? We had a relatively simple Christmas eve meal. Everyone helped to put it together.. which is part of the fun of a Hernandez Christmas. This year I made roast pork, which came out quite well, even if I do say so myself.  I received, from my sister-n-law and her fiance, a creme brulee torch. Can you guess what we had for dessert that night?  On Christmas day, we had dinner with the Cooper-Garrett clan. Always a fun event and Alex scored more presents! He was given a Fisher Price Gumball machine which he loves. He pushes down on the handle to make it "sing", and sing it does! It plays one of those crazy tunes that's a cross between a carnival game type melody and a pinball machine type melody. He was also given a knitted cat, which he thinks is fantastic. It lives in his cot and he sleeps with it every night!  What better gift could one give a knitter's son? Especially when he is the son of a knitter who does not like knitting toys. Why? That's a story for another day, I think. All in all, we had a pleasant break from work over the Christmas week. I did not log in to work for a whole week! That's a first for me. At the end of the 10 or so days of holiday, we had Alex's first birthday. Poor boy was born on the day when everyone goes back to work, so he is destined to always have small birthday celebrations, I think. We had a small celebration for him with a mountain of cupcakes. I made 52. It was an accident.. really! I was trying out a new smaller cupcake tin and ended up with more cakes than I thought I would. I still have half a mountain downstairs in the kitchen!  Alex loved the candle and it was then that I realised that it's probably the first time that he's seen a flame up close. he doesn't know yet that it burns and that's ouchie! He loved the cake too, and could not get enough of it!  Since he was so spoilt with toys and clothes for Christmas, we did not buy him too many birthday presents. My parents sent me out to choose a book or two for him. Alex ended up choosing one and I chose the other. No, really, he did choose one book. He threw a tantrum when I put it back on the shelf - a reaction that I got with no other book. He really likes that "Monkey peeps" book. It makes him giggle when the monkey falls out of the tree! Chris and I bought him a new tee shirt and some new pants. He'll be wearing those this weekend when he celebrates his birthday with Chris' family.  So.. what has the past year been like for me? So much has happened in the span of a year. In January, Alex was born and Chris bought a new car. February marked Alex's first Chinese New Year. In March, Chris' brother and his wife came home for a surprise visit. Doesn't sound like that big a deal unless you know that they live in the UK! What a pleasant surprise! In April my parents came to visit and spent Easter with us. I also managed to get the only spinning I had done all year done then. We haven't seen my parents since then, though we do chat on Skype quite often. To Alex, they are just faces on the screen.. but that willc hange soon as we're going back to KL for a visit in February! In May I posted off my ISE4 scarf. It was difficult to part with the scarf as I had grown quite attached to it in the time that I had spent spinning the yarn for it and knitting it. I turned the big three-oh in June. I feel old now. Just old.. not grown up. I also started knitting things for sale then. Oh, and that was when I handed in my business project for uni. The end of my studies... what a relief! July saw Alex tasting "real" food for the first time. Up till that point he had only ever had breastmilk, so it was quite a big change for him. He took to it like a duck to water and we haven't looked back since. August... we fell in love with a house, after many long months of searching, and bought it! We moved in September and for the first time in about 8 months, Alex slept through the night. Oh, what bliss! I strongly believe that it had a lot to do with him having his own room. Aside from the odd occasion when he is teething or not very well, he has slept through almost every night since. Not much happened in October aside from a short trip to Canberra to renew my passport. So glad I don't have to do it again for another 5 years. In November Alex was cruising and we thought he'd be walking pretty soon after that. We were wrong, though as he still continues to walk only with some assistance. December was haircut month for Alex. He endured it well and now looks more like a boy than a baby. What is in store for us this year? I wonder... Labels: Alex, birthday, Christmas, life, new year
Where does the time go?
It is as if the days just sip right past without so much as a "Hello" or a "good bye". I can barely remember what I did yesterday, let alone last week. Sure, it's been busy hectic CRAZY at work, and I have a crawler in the house (by that I mean Alex, not Chris), but still.. it is as if the work never ends and the 24 hours in each day are just not enough. Admittedly the current addiction I have to playing Scrabulous on Facebook isn't helping matters (want a game, anyone?). So.. now that I have a few spare moments before I dial in for my midnight (yes, MIDNIGHT!!!) conference call, I thought I should at least attempt a post on my poor neglected blog. We haven't been up to much. Things are pretty much the same here aside from a few small not so small changes and events. Let's start with Alex, shall we? As of yesterday, he has learnt to say "Mama". Well, it's more like "ah...mamamamamamamamamamamama".. but I'd still like to think it's "Mama". I am also choosing to ignore the fact that he calls his food "mamamamama" and he calls his toys "mamamamama" and he calls me "mamamamama". In fact, he's calling everything"mamamamama". That's okay. He'll soon learn that there is only one Mama in his world and she's me! He's probably going to be very confused when he sees my mum again, though, as she is "Ah Mah" - the Hokkien word for 'grandmother'. Will he get "Mama" and "Ah Mah" mixed up? We'll see. Oh, and he is also saying "nanana". We call bananas "nana" in this house and maybe he's heard me ask him one time too many whether he would like some "nana" with his breakfast. Alex also "sings" along to the radio in the car. Yes, it is a very loose definition of 'sing'. He sort of babbles along with the music when we're in the car. Sometimes he claps along too. Really cute, not very melodic, but adorable all the same. Heck, what am I saying? As long as he's not crying in the car, I'm pretty happy. Babble away, my boy.. Hmm.. what else have we been up to? Not much, really. We took a trip to Canberra last weekend to get my passport renewed. I was very frustrated with the consulate when they told me that I had to go to the High Commission in Canberra to get my passport renewed, but I accepted it. We made the necessary arrangements for accommodation, leave from work and babysitting for Alex and left on Sunday. On Saturday night, before we left I thought I'd double check that I have all the necessary documents completed and ready for submission. That was when I saw this: "... Two (2) copies of recent full-face photograph, with blue background passport size. " What's the problem, you ask? this is the problem: "..with blue background .." Photos in Sydney for passport purposes are taken with a GREY background. Where was I going to find a shop with a suitable BLUE background? So, at about 11pm, poor old Chris was trying to get a scanned copy of my photo retouched in Photoshop with a blue background taken from one of my old Malaysian passport photos. He did a good job too. Unfortunately the only photo quality paper I had in my printer was deemed "too thin" by the officer at the High Commission and instead he said tha the photos with the GREY background were okay to use. Geez mate, if they're okay, then why aren't the instructions updated to say so? Had we known that, we would have been in bed asleep on Saturday night rather than fussing over those stupid passport photos!!! Anyway, I should stop bitching about it as I have my passport now and I don't have to do this again for another 5 years. Thank goodness! The nice part of the trip was that we did manage to have a nice dinner out on our own. We went to Aubergine at Griffith. Lovely restaurant, and we could not fault the food. We both had three courses and were delighted with each course. the venison that I had for my first course was particularly well done. The place was full that night and as a result, the service suffered. It was not bad, but it just wasn't good either. Nobody told us what the specials for the day were and we didn't even know there were daily specials until I overheard the waiter reciting them to the table behind us. That was a disappointment. The other disappointment was that we asked for teh coffee and petit fours to arrive with our dessert but by the time our coffees arrived, we were well and truly done with our dessert. The petit fours never arrived. It wasn't that we really wanted them as I we were full by that stage but it was just that they were meant to come with teh coffee but never did make an appearance. We enjoyed our meal despite all that. I am not sure whether we will go back again as there are so many other lovely restaurants in Canberra that we are yet to try. Knitting news? Nothing much happening on that front Spinning news? What spinning? Weaving news? Ah.. did I not mention that I bought a loom from Donni? I have not had much time to play with it yet. There are so many other things waiting for me.. I'll post piccies of my first project soon. For now.. it's back to work for me. Another 38 minutes before the conference call begins... Labels: Alex, Aubergine, Canberra, life
Jackpot!
I found this blog while looking for a recipe for kuih bingka (tapioca cake). I love kuih bingka and it is almost impossible to find any here in Sydney, let alone a good one. There are so many recipes tehre I don't know where to start. I'd love to try the cake(kuih) recipes simply because it's so hard to find good kuih in Sydney. I also like that she makes her asam laksa the same way I do.. or should I say she cheats exactly the same way I do! I love my Brahim's sauces! They taste home-made, or close enough anyway. I have made a lot of progress on my Pomatomus socks. Only another 60% of a sock to go. I hope to be done by this weekend, but I may be overestimating how fast I can knit! I also have a pair of green shortaloonies to knit and the buyer wants it embellished with little sheepies roaming around and maybe a couple of brown fences. How cute is that? I am loving it already. I am going to be using Jo Sharp DK wool in Forest and I am planning on using some cream coloured boucle wool for the sheep. Okay.. back to knitting... Labels: life, pomatomus
More progress on the Seafoam pantaloonies
 Thank you for the wave pattern suggestions. Kat's comments and email came in first and one of her suggestions was very close to what I wanted. This is the result. It's not bad, I think, and I hope it's what the lady who is getting this pair of pants wants. I am so glad I checked the original design with her before I did both legs. What a lot of unpicking that would have been! I hope that I won't need to unpick again, but I would rather get it right than have a customer "just settle", you know. I want my customers to be happy. That, and I am really enjoying working on these pants. I love a challenge! I am glad I can still afford to think this way (about making customers happy). I don't depend on my knitting and dyeing to put food on the table, and I am more than happy to spend some extra time making sure that my customers get what they want. It will be a sad sad day, I think, when I have to start thinking that it is no longer worth my time to reknit or re-embroider something because I need the time to knit more stuff to sell. While we are on the topic of knitted pants, I think this site is worth a mention. Not all their products are to my taste but I think the detail in the embroidery is really something. That is A LOT of attention for a child's outfit! I know what I said before about keeping my customers happy, but you know, I'm not sure how much I would have to charge for a pair of pants to make this level of detail in embroidery worth my while! Before I forget, this Sunday is Sally's birthday. Go over and say happy birthday. While you're at it, have a read of some of her posts. She has much to say about many things aside from knitting (local politics and the like), most of which are worth a read. Alex seems to be sleeping better these days. It's not great, but it's better, and there is light at the end of the tunnel. For example, last night, he went to bed at about 7pm, woke up briefly at 9.45 and 2.30 for feeds, and then was awake again at about 4.30 ready to play. At about 630, he went back to bed for another 2 hours. This may sound like an awful night to most of you, but you know what? It's much better than most of the nights we've had in the past month or two! For that, we're grateful. It means, we think, that he's getting better. He still loves his food. So far, he's had rice cereal, apples, pears, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, mushy rice and sweetpeas. I'd like to try banana and pumpkin next, but only because I am out of ideas. I was also thinking of mushy sweet corn (maize to those of you who know it as that). I want to try feeding him pumpkin because he is likely to get that at daycare when I start allowing them to provide his meals. I need to know whether he is intolerant of it. Apparently many babies are, but they grow out of it in the first year or two of their lives. Well, I should get moving on the seafoam pantaloonies. I'd like to have them finished as soon as possible and posted out by next week. Labels: knitted pants, life
Our first illness free weekend in 2 months - NOT!
I thought were would have an illness-free weekend now that Alex is doing so well and I have recovered. Uhm.. think again. Chris is now down with some sort of flu bug and his joints are killing him. Does it ever end in this household?! On the knitting front, not much has been happening. I am busy trying to complete a pair of pantaloonies for the little girl who got this brown and purple pair. Her mum liked them enough to want another pair, but a machine washable pair this time. She liked a pair that I had previously made, but unfortunately they are too small for her baby. So I am making her another pair, as close to identical as possible. See.. the thing is.. I made the first pair out of stash wool. I think the colours had been discontinued, and not recently either! So I had to find similar wool in colours as close to the original as I could get.  The original pair is on the right and the new ones are on the left. Pretty darned close, huh! We're nearly done with the body part now and in another few rows, I'll be splitting the piece to knit the legs. Hmm.. I wonder whether she would like purple cuffs at the bottom too. Off to go ask! Labels: Alex, knitted pants, life, longies
Just catching up all the time
Or at least that's what it feels like. I don't seem to find time to post any more and every time I do, I'm just playing catch up. Our home is finally more or less illness-free. Alex is a lot better as am I. As for Chris, well, I think he was coming down with the same bug but it never did hit him as hard as it did Alex and me. On Friday, we started feeding Alex with some rice cereal. Oh man! I would never have guessed that he would enjoy it so much. He took to it like a duck to water and we very quickly moved on to larger meals and now two meals a day. We took a video of him having his first taste of "real" food How funny is that? He complained every time we took the spoon away and tried to grab the spoon and shove it into his mouth. The carers at daycare are already making jokes about how he is going to eat us out of house and home by the time he is a teenager. Today he threw a tantrum at daycare. Why? Because he finished his bowl of rice cereal and wanted more. Oh my little piggy.. what a greedy little man! I cooked him some pears yesterday and he totally rejected them. Tonight's meal was a little better in that he did eat some. he did grimace, but at least he ate some. maybe tomorrow will be better. On the weekend we bought him a high chair. I was very pleased as we got a fantastic discount, paying only about 30% of the marked price. It was floor stock and is missing a manual, but who cares! It's a high chair. How difficult can it be to use?  Alex has taken to banging on the tray. Perhaps he is saying, "Service please!" Oh, and do you remember the purple and brown long pants I knitted? They were for a swap with Mel who owns SpunkiMunki This is one of the blankies I got in the swap (she sent me two)  And on the topic of long pants, here's the latest creation - I called them Superstar pantaloonies:   They are up for sale at Ozebaby as Alex is still a year or two away from being able to fit into them. And on the needles right now I have a Baby Surprise Jacket (Elizabeth Zimmerman's pattern). I got really confused when I was reading the instructions and stalled. Luckily, Sally came to my rescue. I am now about an inch and a bit into it. I think it's going to come out well. Photos when I have a little more to show. Right now it just looks like grey garter stitch - which is pretty much what it is! Labels: Alex, knitted pants, life, Ozebaby
Long time no post
A lot has happened in the past few weeks. Bad news is that Alex is still sick. He did get better, and then worse, and then better, and he is now worse. I have also joined the ranks of the sick around here. We paid the doctor's office a visit today and he's recommended a different decongestant for Alex. As for me, well, he's hoping that I'll fight my ear and throat infection on my own. Ouch! My Ozebaby store has opened and I have been busy knitting custom orders. First a pink girly one..   and some purple and brown ones, also for a little girl   I am still waiting for more wool to arrive so that I can dye up more. There are another couple of pairs of longies in the custom queue but I should be done with those in a couple of weeks. Oh, and some more good news? Our house hunting has come to an end. We have found a pleasant little townhouse in a neighbouring suburb. It does mean that we'll be moving away from my local yarn store but hey, it's a house and it's ours! I can always drive that extra 5 minutes to get to my local yarn store. It's probably good for my bank account too! We're planning to move in September. I guess I will have to once again face the amount of stuff I have in my stash. To add to that, I also have my "for sale" stash, which really isn't a stash since it's for sale, but it will need to be moved. I am planning to hold a sale on both my Ozebaby and Etsy stores closer to our moving date. The more I sell, the less I have to move! Oh, oh, oh, and more good news.. I can change my tagline.. I am no longer studying part-time. I have heard (unofficially) that I have passed the last subject. This means that I graduate in September. Gosh! September is looking like it's going to be a big month for us! Well, that's as much excitement as I can handle and as much news as I can remember for now.. more later. Labels: Alex, life, longies, Ozebaby
Big update
I know, I know.. it has been ages since I last posted. So much has been happening here. UniDone, done, done and dusted (if I pass). Gosh, I hope I pas. I don't think I can handle another semester. The last couple of weeks were really stressful.Admittedly. it is because I had not done enough work throughout the semester, but hey, it's me! I never do enough work early in the semester. In a few weeks, I'll find out whether I passed. If I do pass (fingers crossed...) I graduate in September. Yay! AlexAlex has recovered well. His nose is still a little stuffy at night but aside from that, he's a well boy. Finally! It's taken long enough. We're almost back where we were before he caught the cold. Our nights are getting better. He's nowhere close to sleeping through the night yet, but we'll get there. A new shopAfter handing in my paper for uni, i have been busy setting up shop here. I am slowly building up stock and getting ready for the opening on Friday. I have started listing stock in the hope that I will generate some interest but none of the products can be purchased till I activate them on Friday. Anyway, feel free to stop by and take a look. Dyeing up a stormAs can be expected, I suppose, with the new store and all. Almost all they new stuff will listed on either my Etsy store or the Ozebaby one. SwapsI am a little behind on my swaps.. well, just one. I posted off my ISE4 scarf nearly two weeks ago and I am just waiting for my pal to tell me that she has received it. I joined Sockapalooza4 but have not even selected the yarn yet!! I thought I'd dye the yarn myself but I wasn't sure about that. I am considering Baudelaire in an almost solid coloured yarn. The only way I know how to get that is by dyeing it myself. I received my ISE4 scarf last week. I have been waiting for the weather to clear to get some decent photos of it. It's a nice wide scarf - really warm! I have already worn it twice! Thanks Latoya! Life in generalHas been pretty sweet. Since my last post, Chris and I have both celebrated our birthdays. I have turned the big three-oh and Chris..well he's older ;). Gosh, I feel old! As the boy was still unwell, and we could not go out to celebrate my birthday, Chris brought dinner home. He bought take-away Indonesian food, including a dish which he does not like. How's that for a gem? So what's this food that he doesn't like? Petai! Stink beans! It's ok if you're wrinkling your nose by now. Most people would. I am just weird.. or maybe it's just the Malaysian in me coming out. For my birthday, I scored the Barbara Walker treasury set. Uh huh.. all four books. I am going to have so much fun when they arrive. I also got the set of Spun-out patterns. I can't wait for them to arrive as I want to knit the baby surprise jacket. I am impatient, of course, and have been eagerly hoping that the postie will arrive soon with my books. Speaking of which.... I am most upset with the postie this week. I posted a suggestion on Rachel's blog and won a skein of yarn. My postie delivered it alright.. he just didn't bother leaving it in the shade away from the elements. On our way to work yesterday, Chris spotted a yellow envelope in the bushes near the postboxes. It was my yarn from Rachel - so wet that the envelope was disintegrating! I have tried to rescue it by re-skeining it and drying it. It's still damp but it smell okay and looks okay. I think I will turn it into a pair of pants or a little sweater for the little guy. Oh, and what yarn was it? It's a ball of Lion Brand Magic Stripes. Such a long post and no photos? Oh alright.. here's one of the boy.  Labels: Alex, etsy, ISE4, life, Ozebaby, Sockapalooza 4
I'll be back
I was reminded today that I haven't posted in a while. Life's kinda hectic here at the moment. I know the tagline for this blog says "Working full time, Studying part time, Knitting all the time". Well, the work's been happening.. the stuidying.. well, I am trying and the knitting..not happening. Nope, nada, zilch.. none! Alexis still unwell. Yes, still! We went to the doctor today and she has prescribed some Amoxyl drops for him. poor little tyke.. only 4 1/2 months old and already taking his first dose of antibiotics. I hoep it clears up the nasty cough he has, though, and he's not going to be taking it in vain. Chris and I are trying to get by with whatever little sleepwe are getting. Gosh, I am going to be so glad when Alex is well again and sleeping better. Anyway, back to writing the silly paper that is due next week. I'll be back. Soon. Labels: Alex, life
I persevered..
And this is what has become of it thus far:  I must admit that it is growing on me. The colours are coming out nicely, though I am still disappointed that the green tones appear to have been devoured by the blues. At the moment I have completed 17 1/2 repeats and it measures a little over 37 inches unblocked. As it is quite a skinny scarf, I am hoping to get it to about 70 inches so that my scarfee can wind it around her neck twice if she wishes. That is 70 inches blocked, which will probably be about 60-65 inches unblocked. I'll probably get to 30 repeats and measure again. B1 came over yesterday for a knitting lesson. She has been making a garter stitch scarf and it's coming along nicely. She started it with a couple of balls of yarn from her mother's stash. It was unlabeled and I'm not quite sure what it was. When she went to try find some yarn with which to add to her scarf at a certain Sydney city yarn store, she was told, "that's acrylic. We don't have that here". I'm not sure it's 100% acrylic - may have been a blend. I didn't test it either - what's the point? It did sound rather snobbish and dismissive of them, though. However, I did warn her that they can be rather snooty at that store. Credit where credit is due - they did help her to find some yarn to use on her scarf and she ended up buying a couple of balls of Cleckheaton Country Silk. It's a pretty yarn from 85%wool and 15% silk. It's soft and has a really nice hand. Guess who ended up with a ball of that? Yup, B1 gave me a ball as a thank you for teaching her to purl.  Gosh! That girl is a fast learner. It took her minutes to learn the purl stitch and after that she was practicing it without a problem. Look at that piece that she knitted in a couple of hours here ... pretty good, huh? Her stitches are mostly nice and even too.. I am almost envious! I am quite sure I could not knit like that when I first started. Alex was a gem for the most of the time that B1 and B2 were here. He got tired at around dinner time (as usual.. he seems to ALWAYS know when I am done cooking!) and started to grizzle a little. He was easy enough to put to bed, though, as he was probably so exhausted from all that talk talk talk with B2.  This is his latest trick. He's still too young to be told it's rude to poke his tongue out at people. Well, that and he thinks it is amusing and it does amuse me. Yes, I am easily amused by my boy. :) Labels: Alex, ISE4, knitting, life
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