the month so far...

Well, it’s been an insane kinda month here at kgirlknits! Somehow, despite all the hectic, I've had quite a productive time of it though, which is pleasing.


To begin somewhere, roller derby life just keeps (forgive me) rolling on!  We took our top travel team to The Great Southern Slam over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend and had a great tournament.  


It was the first time we’d attended as participants, and we finished ranking 12th out of 18, with only two Victorian teams making the top 12 (the other was VRDL, who won the grand final and retained their title as number 1 in the southern hemisphere!).  

The event was run in fairly standard round robin style over three days – 6 pools of 3 teams, each pool having 1 high ranking team, one middle level team and one newer team.  Day 1, we won our first game, lost our second and as a team we were really pleased with our performance, which is all you can ask for, but our win wasn’t enough to get us through to Day 2 on points differential.  Plans are already underfoot for our attendance at the next Great Southern Slam, and we have big aims on how to improve our ranking and progression up the tournament ladder.

Before we left for Adelaide, I cast on a simple triangle shawl as my travel project because I knew all the other WIP’s were going to be too cumbersome and attention-needy to work on in-between games etc.  


Mara, a free pattern from madelinetosh was just perfect as a travel piece – classic triangle construction, main body worked in stocking stitch (the pattern says garter, but I knew the yarn I wanted to use was under 400m so I went with stocking stitch).  The border is just two bands of rib – one 1x1 for an inch, then one 2x2 rib for as long as you want.  You increase in the row between the two bands, which gives a subtle ruffle to the final border, too.

I have had a gorgeous skein of green handspun in my stash forever, and it seemed like the perfect match for the pattern.  Katie, from my knitting group, gave it to me for my birthday, after she’d organised with another friend of ours to dye and spin it up especially for me!  It’s been an absolute pleasure to knit, not only as a yarn, but also each stitch it a reminder of the lovely friends I have made through this knitting community.  

In addition to this new project, I have finally settled on some yarn for my Mum’s friend’s socks.  I did have to go and purchase it though, so my stash-only aim has taken a tiny hit.  That said, I guess it’s actually a positive that my sock yarn stash has gotten low enough to not have anything suitable in it for this project, yeah?  Are you buying what I’m selling?? hehe…

The yarn is Regia Design Line Hand-dye Effect by Kaffe Fassett.  It’s a single ply wrapped with what I presume is a nylon black thread?  As a yarn, I’m not loving  knitting with it – it’s very “catchy” and I find if I don’t moisturise my hands before picking it up, I get constant snags.  Being a single, it’s also producing quite a halo, as to be expected, and I have suspicions it will be prone to pilling or fuzzing.  


The colours are really gorgeous however, moving through flame reds and oranges to magenta pinks, and I am confident the recipient will adore them.   I’ve been asked specifically for “house” socks, so I’m not as concerned about the durability or the fuzzing of the yarn as I would be were they to be socks for wearing with shoes.

I’m halfway through the foot of the first sock, and am happily plodding along a little at a time rather than exercising project monogamy.  I feel like I’ve already knit this gift three times, given the trial and error finding the right yarn and pattern.

There are finished objects too!

I made this cute wee owl for my boss, who has been in China for work and returned just as I was leaving for Adelaide.  I set up a little display for her in her office to return to and she loved it.  
It’s another free pattern of Ravelry, and although I’m not really that proficient at crochet, I decided to choose the crochet version of this owl as it seemed a bit sturdier (and I thought it would potentially be quicker?)

I made use of some op-shop yarn that some of you may remember from a previous post a while back, and it worked perfectly!  Just the right amount of texture to add depth to the toy, and the colour is just lovely.

I also made her a bunny nugget, which is just so cute and fun.  She loved them both and keeps telling me how they make her smile.

and finally, well it wouldn’t be a kgirlknits blogpost without a baby knit!