And Then I Made Nupps
Nupps, or those little buds you see all over Estonian lace, have been bugging me for a long time. Probably since I first picked up the Swallowtail Shawl pattern two years ago and promptly put it down again, I've let the tricky little bobbles get to me. In case you're not familiar, here's what they look like in a very nicely knit and blocked piece of lace fabric.These aren't my nupps. They're just a sample I found on Flickr, by

Knitters are the best people
Imagine this.Monday morning and your husband decides, after much indecision, that he will drive to Sydney that night to see his favourite Swedish metal band on stage at the Enmore theatre. And that we'll drive home afterwards so we won't lose a day's work. That's a 3 hour drive each way and the concert wouldn't finish til nearer midnight.After all my cajoling, all my insistence that he should indulge himself once in a while, he decided to do it and I knew then that I had to come through with the goods and actually support him! I think I quietly suspected he wouldn't decide to do it.Part of the reason he decided to do it was, I think, was because I said I

Handmade News
Do you know the online magazine Handmade News? No? I didn't either until about two weeks ago when I was contacted by Sara Moore from the magazine about doing a profile of my blog.I had a look and realised it was a crafting magazine I'd never heard of. It seemed quite new and asking around some friends, I realised that no one else had heard of it either. I thought that doing an interview would be both fun and interesting so last weekend I cobbled together some answers for the magazine and sent them out, hoping for the best. Having never done such a thing as answer interview questions, I think it's safe to say it felt a bit

A night at the Opera House - Tori Amos
Finally, the night I'd been looking forward to for months arrived yesterday. I got to wear my Myrtle Leaf shawl to the Sydney Opera House to see my long time love, Tori Amos.This photo was taken by Ailsa of Knitabulous, just before we went in and it's my favourite. The shawl and the Opera House.Here's another one that turned out well, this time w

Mitered Hanging Towel
The Canberra group on Ravelry recently held its inaugural swap. There was no particular theme, just a timeframe and instructions to stalk your swap partner to figure out what was best for them.My swap partner, despite being local, was unknown to me and stalking was challenging, but fun. She crochets mainly, has not much in the way of stash and expressed a bit of fear about knitting so I figured I'd knit something for her that was both useful and a little bit clever.I settled on the Mason Dixon Mitered Hanging Towel from their book,