About the time I went to Bendigo for the Sheep and Wool show...

What I came home with from "Bendi Spendi" this year.

Hello my sad neglected blog...I'm back with a post that is weeks overdue. This is my round up of the Annual Australian Sheep and Wool show that was held in Bendigo back in mid July.

For woolcrafters in this neck of the woods this once yearly sheep and wool show is one of the most exciting weekends of the year. It is this event that will prompt the migration of knitters, crocheters, spinners, felters and all fibre lovers into this lovely regional city each year. They come in their little gaggles donning their handmade woollies and find a fibre heaven in the woolcraft market sheds.

This year instead of dragging the family up with me I did the day trip with some knitty girlfriends. We piled into the car with the largest boot and headed off even before my littlies had woken up (such a rarity, and of course it happens on the day that I'm not able to sleep in.). As much as I love having my family with me on such adventures, doing the show with friends who are on the same page when it comes to fibre was such a nicer experience than having to put up with the complaints of Sir S who declares, "I don't like sheep." 

My "Women of Wool". Love you girls!

I confess, I went quite crazy last year at the show because it was my first and I'm going to blame it on the wool fumes. This year I prepped myself to be restrained and to be the supportive enabler for my friends instead. To help me, I was prepared to stick to my woolly wool filter and continue to avoid purchasing any superwashed fibres even if the colours sung to me. My one must buy item was a knitted dinosaur softie because last year that was the one thing at the show that Sir S took an interest in and I told him that if I had money at the end of the day I would buy him one. Well, I'm sure you can guess that I ran out of money last year.

The show did not disappoint this year. The selection of beautiful yarns, fleeces, knitting accessories and bits and bobs were all marvellous. I love seeing the number of independent hand dyers who are around these days and discovering new people who I were not familiar with before. I love seeing how Nan Bray's White Gum Wool is becoming quite a popular base for hand dyers to use and that makes my heart sing because I am a huge fan of her principles and practices. It excites me to see Aussie hand dyers using her bases because it means that I can still buy from indie dyers and support their small businesses.

Here are some of my stand out favourites from the show this year:

1. Alpaca Allure

At this stall I met a family who run their own alpaca farm and a mini mill out in the Dandenong Ranges, Victoria. They had all this lovely undyed yarns in gorgeous natural alpaca fleece colours. The thing that really got me was on each of their labels they listed the names of the animals that the fibre came from as a dye lot. So, I bought a skein of their 8ply that came from Rose and Leo in 2016. It is so so soft and I love the natural sandy grey colour.

2. Dyed by Hand

I bought some yarn from her last year and I was happily a return customer this year. It was the super luscious camel/ silk lace weight yarn that got me this year. Knitting with lace weight yarn is a bit of a scary prospect but getting to work with this beautiful yarn will motivate me to give it a go.

Impossible to resist touching this fleece.

3. Bellevue Park Wool

A family run Australian farm that is growing some beautifully crimpy and superfine merino. They had this raw fleece on the table and I could not keep my hands away from it. What can I say, crimp excites me.

4. Wool2Yarn

I had a lovely conversation with the man behind this mill, Alasdair while I pawed over and sniffed his skeins of Gotland wool. He too runs an alpaca farm and mini mill in regional Victoria and he had some really exciting blends of Gotland with fibres like silk and recycled wool or cashmere. I am so impressed to find a small industry of fibre milling and production just on my doorstep in Victoria. I am filing away this information for future fibre dreams.

I came away with a couple more business cards and flyers of things that caught my eye but I restrained myself from buying. If I get the chance to follow up on those yarns and fibres in the future I'll tell you about them.

It was such a fun day amongst the wool fumes and the tactile heaven of fibre. Did you make it to Bendi this year? What caught your eye or should I say hand as you fondled through the stalls?

BTW, I did buy the dinosaur for Sir S this year and redeemed myself (and wool) in his eyes.

It was clear I had a bit of a colour theme this year.

Finished object file: Campside Shawl | Nunnaba Artisan Yarn Gradient

One of the great knitting moments in life are when you finish a project and it becomes an immediate favourite wardrobe item. My recently finished Campside Shawl designed by Alicia Plummer is one of those items. I have been wearing this shawl a lot and it's just a delight.

The pattern for this shawl was offered as a free pattern on the Pom pom Magazine blog about a year ago and you can access it here. The post also shares Alicia's story of what inspired her in the design for this shawl. Campside is reminiscent of her childhood summers spent at a family cabin. For her the pattern connects with her memories of comfort, warmth and shelter. It is a deeply personal story but one that resonates with all and when I wear my Campside I feel wrapped in soft comforting wool and it warms my heart.

The pattern has a few issues making it challenging to follow but nothing that an experienced knitter can't work out. It only has charts for the eyelet lace pattern and sometimes the lack of written instructions can leave you making some deductive leaps with the knitting. Basically there are some points in the charts where you could deduce that an extra eyelet and decrease is missing but you can also knit it as charted too and it doesn't really affect the overall look of the shawl. I figured at the end of the day, this was offered as a free pattern, I shouldn't get too uppety about errors. 

For this great wardrobe staple I used some deliciously soft high micron merino from White Gum Wool that had been hand dyed by Nunnaba Artisan Yarn into a gradient colourway called 'Blue Jay'. When I ordered this yarn I requested that the gradient colours be spread over the 300g as a long gradient. I didn't want to receive 3 skeins of standard gradient dyed yarn because that would make a bigger project slightly more challenging. 

When a gradient comes in a single skein all the colour transitions are contained in that single length of yarn. This poses the challenge of finding the perfect pattern to match with the yarn; where all colours will be utilized. If you find a small project that requires approximately the same yardage as one skein of the yarn then perfect, you'll get all the colours and no leftovers. However, when you do this you might find yourself limited to small projects like kids garments or hats because you won't have enough yardage to make anything bigger. 

Over time I have figured out a few ways to work larger projects with gradients, so here are my suggestions. One way is to alternate skeins of the gradient and depending of how many skeins you are prepared to juggle you can double, triple, (or even more) your yardage. 

Another idea is to add on skeins of the trim colour. The trim when a dyer offers a semi solid colourway that is the same as the outside colour of the gradient skein. When knitting, you get to the end of the gradient but need more yardage you can continue knitting in the trim colour so that the colour transition is not interrupted. 

If the trim option is not available you can just use the gradient as a feature and then finish off the pattern with a neutral colour. For example Kelly Brooker's Conscious pattern is designed with gradients in mind. The yoke can be knit out of a gradient and then the rest of the pullover is finished off with something else.

Then lastly, there is what I did with my Campside project; specifically ordering a long gradient so that the colours were spread across the whole 300g of yarn. It made knitting this shawl so much easier because I had one large cake of yarn to knit through that needed no alternating or changing of colours. 

There is so much to love about this shawl and I must say the result is exactly what I wanted. What I have achieved here has helped me be less afraid of working with gradients and given me many ideas for how to tackle similar projects in the future.

What experience do you have with knitting with gradient yarns? Have you tackled the challenges differently? Do share your thoughts and tips.

Finished object file: Sawmill River Hat | Brooklyn Tweed Loft

I finished this hat about a week ago but with the busyness of kids at home on summer holidays I haven't had much time to think about blogging.

This Sawmill River Hat by Bonnie Sennott was a spot of selfish knitting that gave me the opportunity to have a play with Brooklyn Tweed's Loft (fingering weight) yarn. Just before Christmas, Yarn + Co., a LYS in Melbourne got in a shipment of BT and to my knowledge they are the only Australian stockists of this much sought after yarn. I was quite beside myself with excitement and didn't hesitate to pick up a few skeins as a Christmas present for myself.

When it came to picking a pattern for this gorgeous yarn I wanted a single skein project and something with cables. Bonnie Sennott's hat pattern fit the bill exactly I even went with the sample colour, Hayloft.

When swatching with the loft the yarn broken as I was casting on with the long tail method. I had read that this yarn due to it's woollen spun nature was very delicate and this break just confirmed that. So my first few rows were knit quite gingerly for fear of breaking the yarn again. Once I got going I was more confident and familiar with the feel of the yarn in my hand so that nervousness disappated.

In my hand the yarn felt rustic but not itchy. It is a lovely tweedy yarn spun from  American grown Targhee-Columbia wool. I don't know much about this breed but I must say the wool is a delight to wear against the skin. At first touch it may not feel very appealing especially to knitters who are mostly merino users. It does not have that same squishiness of merino wool but when you look closely at the strand it is clear that it is undoubtedly soft, lofty and delicate. 

Shortly after I cast on this project I was browsing around Bonnie's Ravelry group page and noticed that she was hosting a 'Selfish knitting KAL'. My project met the requirements of the KAL; being a new project cast on in the new year, it was one of Bonnie's patterns and I was knitting it for myself. I joined in the chatter and was quite excited that I was ticking off my goal of attempting more KALs this year. I finished well ahead of the cut off date and I just enjoy watching and commenting on my fellow knitters' progress now. There is also a pretty good prize on offer but I don't think my chances of winning it are pretty high.

Such well defined cables from the BT Loft.

I did make a few modifications to the pattern and you can read my project notes from my Ravelry page here.

I liked knitting with the BT Loft and I really enjoyed the cables of the pattern. I am happy that I have another soft and snuggly hat ready for me in the winter and now that I've experienced this highly talked about yarn, I'm dreaming of more projects that I can make with it.

2016, another year of making

New projects in the new year. I cast on a Sawmill River Hat with some yummy Brooklyn Tweed Loft that I have been so keen to try for so long.

Now that we have flipped over to the new year I wanted to share my making goals for 2016. I'm not going to be as specific as last year's post that listed what I aimed to make each month over the course of the year. I do have similar goals this year based on when the birthdays of family members fall but I think there's no need to write them out again.

My general making goals for 2016 are:

• To stash less and to knit my stash.
• To continue to try new things especially more colourwork. 
• To continue to build my handmade wardrobe and the kids' wardrobes.
• To participate in more KALs and even try a MKAL*.
• To always have a pair of socks in progress because socks make good travel knitting.

Stash less

I have been thinking about this goal a lot and I have come up with a plan to help me stash less. My aim is to select the yarn that I wish to work with and to cast on the project that I had set it aside for. I have usually been a person who finds a pattern and then tries to match yarn for it and often I feel like the yarn in my stash is not suitable because I have either already intended it for something else or I don't think it is the right yarn for the project. Then I start looking for some new yarn and of course we know how the story goes. Therefore, by committing myself to knit the beautiful fibres that I already own I get to not only stash bust but also to make those patterns that I have been queueing for so long.

New techniques

As a maker there are always new things to learn and I am still such a newbie at knitting and sewing. Everything that I attempt with the sewing is new for me so in this area I won't find it hard to broaded my skill set. With knitting I want to try more colourwork, especially stranded colourwork techniques and possibly attempt a fair isle styled project. I will also hopefully develop more confidence with pairing colours together to make pleasing and attractive garments.

Handmade wardrobe

This will involve attempting to make those jumpers that I have been dreaming of, not only for myself but also for my children and husband. I have also been building a bit of a fabric stash so I really need to get onto the sewing machine and smash out some tops, dresses and shorts for myself and the kids. The new machine that my darling Hubs gave me for Christmas will definitely help with achieving this goal. Such gifts show me that I am truly blessed to be known and loved.

KALs and MKALs

There is such a buzz when you are making something socially. There is the joy of chatting about pattern and yarn selection and the kudos you get when you actually finish the object and post it in the forums. I'd like to try a mystery knit too because it sounds like a fun and interesting challenge to take on.

Socks

I have already cast on a pair of toe up socks and I'm knitting two at a time on magic loop. There are surprisingly so many aspects to sock knitting and so many different techniques and styles. Just working on socks will be helping me to learn new things and they make great projects to take along everywhere.

I predict that throughout the year I will be making for my family and friends as usual but I hope that there will also be a fair bit more 'me' knitting in the months to come.

What are your goals for the year? Wishing you all a happy new year and I look forward to seeing your making in the year to come.

*MKAL = Mystery Knit a long.