Thursday, November 21, 2019

An update - I'm back in NZ and I've moved my blog!

Hi to anyone out there who may be reading!

There's a lot about Blogger.com that I love but earlier this year, I was under the impression that Blogger were closing their site.  Not sure how I came up with that and whether it's true or not but I painstakingly started moving all of my posts across to another site.  And for a person who is not great with tech stuff, it was painful! However, along the way, I managed to lose most of my followers/viewers and I'm not sure how that's happened but it has.  So for anyone who may be reading this lonely little blog that hasn't had any love for most of the year, my new blog can be found over here

I haven't been the most prolific writer this year, but there is almost one post a month if you average it out and I'd love for you to have a look if you're interested.  I've moved back to NZ to live so there are a couple of posts since I've arrived back 3 months ago.  

Thanks for following me here and I may continue to share my latest posts here as well.


Have a great rest of the month!

Friday, January 4, 2019

The things we do!

I felt it appropriate to do an early in the New Year post given so much has happened in the last year and I'm heading into a fresh new year with more dreams of this place that has a firm hold on my heart and soul. 

Although the months since returning have been somewhat challenging in a number of ways, I wanted to share one of the things that created a regular social activity for me in NZ while also giving me the opportunity to learn new skills and in turn has kept me going here since leaving the land of the long white cloud.

Any of you who know me well will know while I have oodles of patience for many things, my patience for fine, fiddly type of activities is rather limited. Knitting falls fairly and squarely within that range. 

I was taught the very basics of knitting, how to do a knit stitch and how to do a purl stitch when I was very young and have made the odd scarf or shawl in plain stitches on occasion. Of course I also used chunkier yarn and larger needles, so I was less likely to make an error and the project didn't take long to finish, giving fairly quick gratification. It works well when there is a lack of patience!

Before moving to NZ, I had discovered there was a knitting group for all ages who met at a local cafe one evening a week and I figured it might be a good place to meet people while doing something that would hopefully be fun. Admittedly I wasn't 100% sure about the fun part given my patience level with knitting, however, I thought if there was a bunch of people of various ages, then it was bound to have some fun involved anyway just from the people mix.

I mentioned this to my housemate in the days after my arrival and she pointed me in the direction of a little pop up wool shop run by the woman who started Knit Club. So off I went to acquire some supplies and information about what was available locally. It was an added bonus to find a delightful, encouraging and funny woman who was helpful, knowledgeable and ever so welcoming.

I bought a few balls of yarn in different colours and what I loved was the backstory of both the yarns and the colours which all reflected the local landscape. I decided to make just a very basic small-ish blanket to start with, one that's great to use if you're wanting to snuggle up and read a book or watch a movie.

So I got started, then went along to the next Knit Club meet with my knitting in hand. Ironically, even though I was just doing the most basic garter (plain) stitch, I'd managed to make a mistake and had somehow dropped a stitch. 

I sat down with some of the women and the one beside me had been talking with someone else before noticing I was about to start unpicking. Next thing she has my knitting in hand saying she could fix it for me which she proceeded to do quickly, making it look incredibly easy. As she handed it back, she says there you go and by the way, I'm J and shared her name. She ended up becoming someone who's company I thoroughly enjoyed each time we met.

It took me three months to complete my first project which I finished last New Year's Eve (2017). One of my sons said it reminded him of a beach towel, (not quite so politely as that though), but the beach towel blanket seems to be a good name for it as it turns out. It also seemed kind of fitting I'd completed it on New Year's Eve and from there I went ahead in leaps and bounds to have a somewhat prolific year of knitting.




I loved the weekly get togethers at the lakefront café. They were held early evening, in time for happy hour for those who wanted to indulge and often some of us also had a light evening meal as well. Lots of talking, laughing, knitting, and there was always someone to help you with whatever you were working on or wanted to know.

It became my regular social outing and I found myself looking forward to it each week. I worked shift work, not nights but varying start/finish times between 8am-8pm and I was really lucky in that I was able to arrange to always finish work early on Knit Club nights which was the start of my 'weekend' anyway.

I found myself exploring yarn stores wherever I went and it wasn't long before I had a growing stash and a number of projects in mind. I found some delicious alpaca yarn from an alpaca farm near Akaroa I couldn't resist. I haven't made anything with it yet, but do have a project in mind when I have a little more experience. The alpaca yarn is on the left hand side of the basket in the pic below and there is a heap of other yarns of varying types, colours and thickness below the ones on top.




Living in an alpine climate, I noticed that knitting is a really popular pastime with all ages and while scarves are always an easy starting point, beanies were also a popular item to knit for a beginner. I started with a really simple pattern and made a couple of those before trying a loaned pattern where I had to learn new skills. The simple pattern is the one in the middle. I made a couple of others with the same pattern that aren't in the pic as they were gifts.




I found this burnt orange yarn in a little place called Geraldine. It's super soft and really warm.


The beanie below took a few questions, not too much unpicking thankfully and once I got the hang of it, I was happy with how it came up. It's cosy, warm and easy to wear. If anything, it's slightly big for my noggin so probably wouldn't be firm enough if you were out doing some type of activity in a strong wind, like jet boating or skiing.  I've been going to make another one in this pattern but haven't got there yet.





During the winter months, there was World Knit in Public Day and it just so happened to fall on my day off. It is quite an event in Wanaka and was hosted on the foot path outside of a local café in the middle of town. Couches and easy chairs were set up, with blankets to use if you got cold given we were out in the elements on a cloudy wintery day. It was such a fun couple of hours and I loved that once again, there was quite a variety of ages from the very young right up to the not quite as young, including one brave boy who came along with his mother. A pic below with yours truly, hair tied up despite the cold to keep the wind from blowing it in my face.




During the winter, I also made a few poncho's for the little people in my life. I made one for a newborn, one for an 18 month old and one for a 3 year old, as well as doing a tiny one as part of a larger knitting group project that was part of a donation to the premmie baby unit at one of the larger hospitals. The green one was a chunky wool and while it was very soft, I should have made it on larger needles so it had more movement or flow in it and wasn't quite as stiff.







I learnt how to make some basic baby bootees and tried my hand at using different stitch patterns on a couple of scarves, before moving onto a much larger project of knitting a blanket as a special gift after one of my sons called to share the news he was engaged.




Once again, the wool I used for the blanket was local and had a beautiful back story. My son's fiancé is initially from NZ so I thought it would be a nice tribute to her heritage as well. I figured I would have enough time to complete it before my return to Aus where we were having a family catch up and engagement celebration.




I have to admit there was lots of unpicking that happened with this blanket. LOTS!! And then I'd just finished the blanket when another son announced his engagement along with the news they were expecting their second baby. I knew about the baby first (only by a couple of hours) and already had decided to knit a baby blanket with some gorgeous, incredibly soft and lightly chunky alpaca yarn that is perfect for a tiny human.

I'd seen some stitches/patterns I liked, so I ended up creating my own pattern for the baby blanket. The thing with beginners trying to create patterns is that one doesn't always know exactly how many stitches you are going to need to cast on. The blanket was about 8-10 inches long when I realised it wasn't going to be wide enough, so I pulled the whole lot undone and started over. 

I started knitting the baby blanket before I left NZ and did some knitting on the plane while I was travelling back to Australia. One hot tip is to not knit where you have to count stitches or try to follow a pattern when you are tired. Suffice to say, I had some unpicking to do when I arrived back in Australia!




I then decided to make another blanket for the second engagement, which was much easier going next time around. When that one was finished, I then made one for myself. Making one for myself had been my original intention when the wool and pattern for the cabin blanket was first released before I got side-tracked with the engagement announcements.





I have to say it was an interesting exercise knitting chunky heavy wool blankets in the tropics! I would spend some time outside on the patio first thing of a morning and knit for half an hour before I got ready for work, then in the evenings would sit under the air conditioner to do the same.

Big projects finished, I decided to be a little more adventurous and volunteered to be a test knitter for two new patterns. I've completed the first one which is a snood/cowl that can be worn by either male or female. Once again, there were new things for me to learn with this one and again I had plenty of practice at unpicking. When I finished it, I noticed more errors but have decided to leave them as an unplanned feature. As you can see below, I'm unlikely to need a snood here in the tropics but it's ready to go for another NZ winter!




I've just started the second pattern which is an alpine beanie. I'm still in the early stages which is fairly straight forward at this point but to be honest, I think I've bitten off more than I can chew with this one as there are some really complex parts to this pattern. Thankfully, I have met someone locally who is a knitter and can help me with the things I know nothing about!

I enjoyed the knitting group in NZ so much, that I started a group back here in this hot humid climate in Aus. We are a very small group, but given we started very late last year I would think that's to be expected and it will be interesting to see if the group grows in the coming months.

It's funny because I've never envisaged myself as a knitter. I'd read a couple of fiction books a few years back that had knitting groups as part of the story line and I'd loved the idea but given my lack of patience with knitting, never dreamed it would be something I would take up and thoroughly enjoy.

The surprising thing I've found despite the frustration I sometimes feel when I don't know what I'm doing or I'm having to unpick for the umpteenth time, is I actually quite enjoy the challenge and I find it relaxing. It's been great for stress relief and I find when I'm at a loose end and don't know what to do with myself, I knit.

I take my knitting everywhere and have knitted in some unlikely places at times. On planes and in cafes/restaurants is fairly standard, but I've also taken it with me when I've gone on a walk. I did the Rob Roy Glacier walk in the month before I returned and when I stopped for a break at the lookout point, I did some knitting and updated my journal. 

Plenty of times I'd been for a drive sightseeing and knitted while I enjoyed the surroundings. I also used to take a book to read and my knitting to the Lavender Farm as it's always a good place to relax a while.

So one never knows what is around the corner when it comes to creativity. I would say to never say never as one day you may find something you thought was not your cup of tea so to speak, actually is!

Since returning to Australia, I've found knitting also brings me comfort because 99% of the yarn I have was purchased in NZ, so in some little weird way it makes me feel closer to the place.

For now I'm going to see how this fancy beanie turns out and I'm looking forward to hopefully being able to wear it and the snood when I return. That's it for now folks, thanks if you made it the whole way through a knitting post especially if you're a non knitter!