It's been a long week already and I'd rather be knitting...

right here...

A girl can dream, can't she?



boy, do I need a break.....

knitting my latest wip, enjoying gyros, mousaka, stuffed zucchini flowers, saganaki, calamari, charcoal grilled octopus, dolmades, lots of dips! and ouzo and fine wine........

Sigh......Now I have to go and get dinner started... :(

DD's scarf

Here's DD first ever scarf....
I must admit that it's going along quite nicely. She does occasionally gain or lose a stitch which can be easily fixed. Homespun is quite a forgiving yarn for her as a beginner. You can't see mistakes :) ! She keeps asking how many rows she knitted and how many more she needs. She's averaging 6 to 10 rows a day while watching TV at nite and is impatient to have it finished before school starts!

Here's a pic of some lovely yarn I bought from Celia earlier this year. Did swatches ages ago and was toying around with ideas for tops as I think they're too beautiful for socks! There are some scrawls and sketches in my notebook that I'm trying to make out now.... (what was I thinking???!!!). They're both fingering weight and I'm thinking of combining the 2 for a lacy exercise....
or should I do lacy socks??

Early Spring Cleaning...

Did some spring cleaning here at the blog this morning.
Have removed a few entries. My initial intention was to have a knitting diary and a portfolio of my original work 'published' here. However, have decided to remove some of the items due to copyright and publication issues should some of these have some commercial prospects.
Which leaves me in a quandary...
What can I post now?
Was going to say that I haven't knitted a published pattern for many years now. One exception at the start of this year was socks. Had not knitted one before. Otherwise, most projects have been inspired by need or pure passionate knitting fun. Any suggestions?


Meanwhile, DD's jumper is progressing nicely and I'm considering giving it some shape as I'm at the waistline level. Hoepefully, DD won't protest ;)!

Congratulations, Celia!

and make that a Triple!
Celia (www.celiaknits.blogspot.com) has 2 patterns in this issue of Yarn magazine!
You go girl! Not to mention lovely news about the pitter patter of little feet for her and hubby!

Awwwwww!


As for the knitting front, I'm trying to consolidate my patterns and start submitting some of them to magazines or like publications. Have never done this before! Finding it a bit daunting and am looking forward to any feedback that I hope to get. If things go to plan, I'll be cleaning up some of my old posts on patterns that may have some commercial possibility. I must thank Clara at the Knitters Review for her incredible timing on this. Her post and comms added some assurance that I needed at the time to get it all going.

Currently on the needles is a jumper for DD -
A straight stk stitch would have been an easy knit for this especially with the colour but I'm trying to see if cables might add to the overall texture and feel of the garment. It's had a bit of inevitable frogging (made a boo boo on the initial calcs!) but I think at least I've settled down on getting what I can visualise at this stage.
DD is at the age where the colour Pink won't do...nup not Purple either.... it's gotta be a certain shade of Red...and she finally settled on the blue!
She's also knitting her very first scarf in this yarn!

"Zhang Zhuek" - May Festival

Haven't made these for years and we thought it'd be great to let the kids have a go. The Rice Dumpling Festival was on Wednesday 31/5/2006 and DD and DS had fun trying to shape these triangular pyramids (as DS calls them) and securing them without the contents spilling out!
Not knowing much about why we go to so much trouble to make and eat this, I found this link on the web http://www.knowingfood.com/ricezongfest.html Ingredients and shapes differ with each dialect but all so yummy!
The whole process takes a whole 24hrs and this depends how many one makes. We thought we'd make about 60 but in the end, we managed to double it!
All consumed within 24hrs as well!
The kids wld like to do this again and we probably will in a few weeks!