Creative Controller

OK. I have commited to moving this blog. It has been great to learn on but I have found that wordpress suits me better. Although it is not as flexible, it is way more user friendly and has a lot more built in capabilities. Please follow me to www.creativecontroller.wordpress.com and update your links.

just for henry's mum!

I got some great pakucho 100% organic Peruvian cotton at the recent craft show from ecoyarns. I got a pack of 3 yarns that had basic patterns for wash cloths. The patterns were pretty boring garter and moss stitch squares. I have also recently acquired a great knitting book called
Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick. (i got it from amazon) It has a wonderful flower shaped washcloth pattern in it (pictured). Each petal is knitted separately then all joined and knit in the round to create the centre. The yarn is absolutely gorgeous to knit with. It is quite thick and surprisingly soft. I can't wait to finish it and I think it will be a gift for my mum. The other two balls will also eventually be wash cloths and I am already on the look out for other interesting patterns.

I have my handquilting workshop on wednesday and have had to make a mini quilt. I could take the bubble quilt to work on but then that would not allow for any mistakes. Please don't judge me on the workmanship as it was such a rush job. It took me all of 45 mins to make. The only batting I have is some wool/poly left over from my last quilt. So the size of the quilt was determined by that. I hope it is all right to work with. I am pretty pleased with the pattern too but I am not sure which side will be the top. I am planning on making a quilt top single doona cover for the little girl and the pattern will be kinda like this. The pattern background and contrast coloured squares is based on the squares quilt from my Denyse Schmidt book. I think.
I have also nearly finished henry bear. He is getting a face this afternoon. I was going to post a picture but because he is a gift I don't want to wreck the surprise.

Being an Australian knitter it has taken me a little while to get used to some new terms. Until listening to some international knitting podcasts I was blissfully unaware. I knit with "wool" regarless of the blend, which (I have learnt) is commonly known as yarn. And yarn is not always in "balls" but sometimes in skeins. So my old phrase of ball of wool has been forever changed.
I have also been converted to seeking out better yarn. Generally my stash has been purchased from Lincraft or Spotlight. Not that there is anything wrong with that but dedicated wool shops are quite scarce. I however have found two within 30mins drive of me (Pennant Hills and Hornsby) and I don't think that there are many more in the Sydney area.
This has lead me to the search for online wool shops. I have been pleasantly suprised by how many Australian sites there are.
The two that I have already ordered from are Ozeyarn and The Wool Shack.
Ozeyarn have a wide variety with what appear to be cheaper prices and postage costs. The Wool Shack has a huge selection of the major brands and is a great resource for all things knitting.
There are dozens of other sites. Here is a small selection of what I have found:

• threads and more - Brisbane retail store with a knitting block of the month
• yarns online - great site, stock cascade yarns and noni bag patterns
• wool baa - lots of top brands
• waverly - direct from the mill DK 8ply pure merino wool only
• yarns galore - the australian distributor of Addi turbo needles
• rare yarns - very natural patterns and colours

I have decided to create another blog which is more family orientated. That way I can concentrate on the craft stuff on this blog and have the diary type entries here on tripled. I am also taking this opportunity to try out wordpress.com for blogs. They look very clean and simple and have a few more options than blogger. I will wait to see how the other blog goes before I commit to moving.

I knit. Sometimes not particularily well and not spectacular items. I am not sure that I should be classed as a real knitter.
I stumbled accross knitting box the other day. Claudine is all that I aspire to be as a knitter in the online community. Her blog is very clean with a great design and well written. Her projects are stunning and the photographs are inspiring. She is also a mum who lives in sydney.
I wish to make things as lovely as she does. Her blog has made it to the top of my favourites list.

Knitting is a craft with a skill set that can be improved with patience, practice and time. I will become a real knitter. I will make beautiful items and be proud of them.

I have known about the NSW knitters guild for a while and have finally decided to become a member. Hopefully this will be the start of my knitting dreams.

At the craft show I bought a great piece of material from prints charming. They had a very simple quilt on display that I adored that used a similar piece. The print has an assortment of bubbles and my plan is to hand quilt an occasional bubble using perle cotton. I am hoping that I will learn how to do this at my workshop next Wednesday. Anyway I have made the top of the quilt and it is very simple. I would like to have an accent colour for the binding and probably a plain white backing. I am hoping that it will look really good once the bubbles have been quilted.