Christmas!

Just in case anyone was wondering...


... our Christmas tree was decorated in time for Christmas. :)

As it turns out though, we live in quite an interesting street where Christmas decorations are concerned. While our street was never in any danger of competing with the decoration level in Chauvel Street, which is not far from here and attracted bus loads of tourists after it featured in an article in a Sydney newspaper in the lead up to Christmas, there had been some Christmas lighting out there. But that all changed after Christmas Day. By the evening of Boxing Day, the only Christmas lighting in our street were the fairy lights in our trees -- Michael swears there were even suspicious patches of scorched earth out there where Santa may have been burnt in effigy. ;)

Anyway... The fairy lights in our trees will remain illuminated now until at least February -- January is a big month for celebrations here, as both our daughters have January birthdays, and there's Australia Day too at the end of the month.

On the day itself, I received some fabulous presents from my family. :) Among them were some really cute plush toys...


Amanda gave me some more Puffkins -- Quackster the duck, Spike the porcupine, Dinky the yellow dinosaur, Drake the red dinosaur, Pickles the green dinosaur, and Danny the purple dinosaur. Several of them even have the original darker coloured swing tag, so I dread to think what she had to pay for them. Amanda also gave me the giant Jiji cat, which is unbelievably soft and cuddly.

Katherine's present to me was the puppet replica of the Vampire Angel from the 'Smile Time' episode -- she knew she'd done good when I refused to put it down for the rest of the night. :)

I love the detailing which has gone into the Angel puppet replica. Especially the boots...


Aren't they just adorable? :)

And if anyone was worried, all photographs of the Angel puppet replica were taken in the shade and away from direct sunlight. ;)

Just in time for Christmas...

... a very well-travelled package has arrived here from my Secret Pal for Secret Pal 9. According to one of the notes enclosed in the package, this is the package which was originally mailed to me in early November, eventually returned to my Pal because apparently my postcode wasn't recognized at some point in its travels as a valid Australian postcode (Huh???), and then re-mailed to me in the hope that it would reach me before Christmas -- which it has! :)

So what did my Pal choose for me? I was dying to know, so I rushed to unwrap my package.

Well...

When I opened the wrapping around the package, I initially found this...


A box of Canadian breakfast cereal. Yummy!

I quickly opened the box -- I hadn't had breakfast yet, after all ;) -- and found something even better than cereal hiding inside...


By the time I had this all out on the table, there had been so much shrieking with joy, I can tell you!

Firstly, there is one of the most amazingly cute 'Totoro' plush toys I've ever seen...


... which is now sitting in pride of place in my room in a location where I can always see it, hopefully keeping it safe from possible abductions by other unnamed people who live here who are also very aware of its cuteness. ;)

Then there is my very own sock monkey, and some ice blue bamboo yarn...


As you can see from the accompanying note...


... the sock monkey was made especially for me by my talented Secret Pal. I especially love the way the cherries are all so perfectly centred on the monkey's limbs, and the way the white areas of the original socks work so well to give my monkey loads of character. Thank you for making this for me! :)

And not only is the bamboo yarn every bit as soft as my Pal says in her note, but the ice blue shade she chose for me is definitely one of my favourite colours. I can hardly wait to finish some of my current projects now so I can have a play with this yarn and find out what it wants to be.

And my next surprise was...


... some knitting note cards of my very own. My Pal has obviously been reading my blog very closely to know how I had been searching for these everywhere without success. :)

And finally, here is the message my Pal wrote to me on the back of the Christmas card...


Thank you, Secret Pal! You've really spoiled me with this package, and I can hardly wait to see the surprises that await me in the other two packages you have sent me. :)

One of my favourite knitting accessories...

... is my little fluorescent torch.

Michael first pointed out how useful it might be as a knitting accessory when he suggested that laying a tension square I had knit in a very textured yarn across the face of the torch might make it a lot easier for me to count the stitches and rows. He was right, of course, and what had been a frustrating task up until then was suddenly very easy.

It was invaluable too while I was duplicate stitching the cross motifs on to the 'Kashmir Hat'...


... as the knitted fabric was quite close in texture, and without the backlighting the torch gave me it was really slow going finding the correct place to insert the needle to give a really neat finished result without splitting the stitches in the base fabric.

Without the 'Kashmir Hat' draped across its face, my fluorescent torch looks like this...


... but any torch with a flat face and a reasonably even level of light will do the job.

The other reason this is one of my favourite knitting accessories is that I live in an area which is prone to power blackouts, so keeping it with my knitting means that I am able to work on my knitting under an even light while I wait for the power to be restored. :)

... And a little more like Christmas

The Christmas wreath has made it on to the front door...


As you can see, Christmas decorations are never in any great rush to be put up at our house, and only appear when they are good and ready. :)

And the Christmas tree isn't far off being set up now. Honest...

Beanies, hats and caps for charity

Kerry, my hostess for Secret Pal 9 recently challenged us to knit hats for charity, and asked us to post photographs of both work-in-progress and completed projects on our blogs.

Firstly, here are the work-in-progress photographs of my projects.

The 'Lacy Hat' from Jo Sharp's 'Knit 2' book...


... knit with Jo Sharp's 'Soho Summer DK Cotton' in 'Rockpool'. As you can probably see from the photograph, my lace panel is the mirror image of the original, so whoever this hat finally ends up with will definitely have something one-of-a-kind. ;)

The 'Kashmir Hat' from Jo Sharp's 'Knitting Emporium' book...


... knit with Jo Sharp's 'DK 8 Ply Pure Wool' in 'Aubergine' and 'Pistachio'. I hadn't knit anything with duplicate stitch motifs before, and I have to say that those cross motifs took at least as long to do as it took me to knit the hat itself.

The 'Piper Hat' from Jo Sharp's 'Contemporary Knitting 1' book...


... knit with Jo Sharp's 'DK 8 Ply Pure Wool' in 'Scarlet', which is one of the heathered colourways -- Michael really loved the colour of this yarn, which I'll have to remember next time I'm knitting something for him.

I'm not sure how obvious it is in my work-in-progress photograph, but the photograph of the finished hat in the book is slightly different to the hat I knit -- the band around the lower edge of the hat has the stocking stitch side out on mine, whereas the hat in the photographs in the book have bands with the reverse stocking stitch side out. The instructions in the pattern actually tell you to work the band the way I have done it, and as I liked the look of this better I decided not to change the pattern to make the hat look like the ones in the photographs.

However, I did change the pattern so I could knit the hat on circular needles instead of the straight needles the pattern originally called for, and I used a provisional cast on so that I could pick up the stitches and work the band as a knitted hem, instead of sewing it into place later -- which I did in the hope that the resulting line would have a bit more stretch to it, as obviously I don't know the person who will eventually be wearing this hat and I wanted it to be as comfortable as possible to wear. I hope it worked, as getting it right and purling all those stitches together with the correct stitch orientation was a lot harder and more time consuming than I'd thought it would be.

One thing I hadn't thought about when I decided to knit the hat in the round was what to do with the i-cord piping, which originally had the ends sewn into the seam at the back of the hat. I ended up solving the problem by grafting the four live stitches straight from the needle to the cast on end of the i-cord after most of the i-cord was sewn in place on the hat, which actually worked quite well.

The 'Old Bean Hat' from All Tangled Up...


... knit with Jo Sharp's 'Silkroad Aran' yarn in 'Serg'.

I made changes to this pattern too -- I knit it on 5 mm needles instead of the original 4.5 mm needles, and worked 10 cm of K2 P2 rib instead of the original 5 cm so that the ribbing could be folded back over itself for the brim, and the hat would still be long enough to keep the ears warm. I also increased the number of stitches to 90 at the point where I started knitting the stocking stitch section, as a result of which I then had to change the way the crown shaping was worked because of the extra stitches.

Mark Thrailkill's 'London Beanie'...


... knit with Jo Sharp 'Silkroad Aran' yarn in 'Venetian', with stripes in 'Opal' and 'Quartz'.

I actually used the pattern alterations which can be found here to knit a larger beanie, as the original seemed a little on the small side to me -- I knit the medium sized beanie, but with 13 rounds of K2 P1 rib instead of the 15 rounds in the modified pattern.

"Mark's Butch, Macho Roll-Brim Seaman's Watch Cap"...


... knit in Jo Sharp's 'Silkroad Ultra' in 'Neptune'.

I ended up knitting 54 rounds of K2 P2 rib instead of the 38 rounds specified in the pattern, as I wanted a cap with a reasonably deep turned up brim, and which would be long enough to keep the ears of the wearer warm. I also altered the crown shaping to be more like the shaping I knit for the modified 'London Beanie', only in K2 P2 rib instead of stocking stitch.

And here are the finished hats, beanies, and caps. I'm not sure why, but none of the colours in the photographs of the finished items are quite right -- the colours in the works in progress photographs are all much closer to the way they appear in real life.

The 'Lacy Hat'...


The 'Kashmir Hat'...


The 'Piper Hat'...


The 'Old Bean Hat'...


The 'London Beanie'...


And finally, 'Mark's Butch, Macho Roll-Brim Seaman's Watch Cap'...


Many thanks to my 'Reject Shop' glass head for agreeing to model all of the hats.

All of these hats, beanies, and caps will be delivered to 'Just Enough Faith' later this week. I'm really pleased with the way they've all turned out, and I hope their eventual recipients enjoy wearing them. :)

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas...

Look what Michael risked life and limb over the weekend to put up for me.

Fairy lights! :)

Here is the view as you come down our street...


... and walking up our path...


... and, finally, from the front balcony...


This year's lights are way brighter than the ones we have had in previous years, but Michael assures me that this style of light should stand a much better chance of lasting the distance, and won't require the constant replacement of bulbs that last year's strings did.

I have my fingers crossed now that they survive until the New Year at least -- they're still all illuminated after three days which is already better than last year's lights managed, so I'm cautiously optimistic.