tow swan wing scarf

I found out through Lifehacker that today is “International Caps Lock Day.” This made me remember a memory from my childhood. My dad became a computer programmer back when most people didn’t know what a computer was. One time when I went to his office he let me type on his computer. I just pushed the keys to write things in small letters. Than my dad showed me the awesome key that let me write in BIG LETTERS! A fond memory indeed. Here’s a photo of me when I was much younger with my dad.

Based on that awful haircut I must be around 6 years old, so this photo is from 1989 or 1990.

I finished the scarf I was working on for the Australian Knitters group swap on Ravelry. I have posted photos on it while I was working on it. I gave it a nice bath last night…

And blocked it using my awesome new wire kit.

The wires made the whole process about a billion times easier!

Today I took of the wires and marvelled at how beautiful it turned out!

Here’s a close up of the stitch work

I hope my swap partner likes it! I am so very excited to receive my swap item!!

I received another swap item today, yay! Through a very long story I ended up with a spare Ravelry tote bag and I offered up to swap it for sock yarn. One awesomest user offered to give me a skein of Sundara for it aaand it arrived today. Look how pretty!

The colour way is called Caribbean. It is destined to become a lace scarf of sorts once I get through the other lace project I am working on.

We went to a wedding today. It was a lot of fun catching up with people I met at the henna party (for the same wedding). I feel good that I am getting out more and socialising with people. Yay for making friends! Here’s ACA and me at the wedding,

It was a tiring day. I can barely keep my eyes open so I will go sleep.
One more thing before I go, I would like to offer my congratulations to my dear friend Jess for the little bundle of joy that will be arriving in May. Double, no wait triple double YAY for Jess!! When I told ACA that my friend Jess was having a baby he said “So, you’ll start knitting things soon?” To quote Mrs Palin, you betcha!
kelebek

tow triple happiness

Three things that made me happy today,
Arrival of new sock yarn

Arrival of my new blocking wire set. You can see it was put to use right away!

And the lillies hubby brought home for me.

He knows I love watching them blossom one by one so he picked out a bouqet with mostly closed ones.
I feel truly blessed, Elhamdulillah.
kelebek

tow one year in Australia

It has been one year since I moved to Australia. Where does the time go I do not know! I have checked with my friend Alex who confirmed me that my accent sounds exactly the same except I say “Melbourne” differently. Well it’s a start! I am so really very happy to be here with my beloved hubby ACA. I feel truly blessed to have him in my life and I never want to take that fact for granted.
I feel like I should mention that I am watching Sesame Street from the corner of my eye while I am typing this. It has been a while since I watched it and I am happy to see it’s as entertaining as ever! Today is brought to you by the letter D and the number 17 in case you were wondering!
I have discovered that I love, love making toys! I am not sure why it took me so long to realise this since I love kids and making things for them. Granted the first two toys, Irfan and Mojo I made were snapped up by ACA!

Then I made a monkey for my Magic Yarn Ball swap partner.

His name is Mandarin. I was very sick when I was working on the monkey and I was eating a lot of mandarins for Vitamin C purposes. I was happy to hear my swap partner decided to keep the name I gave him.
Here’s mandarin chilling with Hermoine,

I received an awesome package from my magic yarn ball swap partner. Here’s everything that was in the ball of yarn

And most recently I made two dolls from the same pattern. I love how these two girls turned out!

The one with the shorter hair is Kate and the other one is Lavender.
I have finished the scarf I made with my very first skein of Malabrigo.

I dropped all other projects aside and wound the skein into a ball and started knitting! The pattern is a very simple two row repeat that you can find here I realised that the scarf wasn’t going to be long enough to be wrapped around so I turned it into a keyhole scarf. You know what they say about necesity and invention! I already mailed out the scarf to it’s recipient, the mother to be that I made the Helena sweater for.
I also finished another pair of socks. I am calling these “Summer Socks” because it’s a bamboo blend sock yarn and it keeps my feet nice and cool!

This is the Riverbed “sockitecture” from y favourite sock book ever, New Pathways for Sock Knitters. I used the half linen stitch and I love how it played with the colours of the sock.

This sock knitting business really is an addiction! It feels almost weird when I don’t have a pair of socks in progress! I will be starting a new one shortly but first I need to finish the swap project I am working on. I only have to do four more repeats of the pattern and it’s done!
I did want to share something I realised half way into the project. It’s a pattern where you start with a provisional cast on, knit one half, unpick the provisional cast on and knit the other half. I realised that I really didn’t have to wait till I finished one half of the scarf till I start the other half. I unpicked the provisional cast on and stuck the other end of the scarf on to my needles. I divided the yarn into half and knitted away two socks at a time style.

Neat huh?
I ordered a lace wire blocking kit and I will be blocking the scarf on it as soon as it arrives here!
Finally here are two recent yarn arrivals.

I read an article about the Enchanted Knoll Farm in the newest Interweave Crochet magazine. I went to check out their yarn on Loopy Ewe and before I knew it a skein of it jumped into my cart! The colourway is called Cornucopia.
And this one is the latest shipment of the Yarn Collective sock club. It’s from Suzanne’s House of Wool.

Don’t the colours look like frozen popsicles? I can’t wait to knit it, but I have to find a really fun pattern for it first!
I caught the Wollmeise update so I will have more eye candy to share once they arrive ins!
kelebek