A weekend away means

lots of knitting, which is what happened this weekend. This weekend was longer, Friday was Waitangi Day in New Zealand, a memorial day in honor of the signing some 169 years ago, of the Treaty of Waitangi, between many Maori Tribes and the British Empire. Its a public holiday, and there are official functions to commemorate the merging of the two cultures, most held in the far North where the most significant signing ceremonies took place. For us it was a chance to get away and visit my Dad in Waimate, to collect Toby's watch, he left it behind on the last visit, and to just catch up and spend family time together. What I didn't know is that it was a Rugby 7's tournament ... which meant that Dad was planning to watch a lot of the back to back televised games on tv. I'm not generally into watching sport - Oh-I'll cheer a friend or family member on at an event, or turn up for my kids ... but I don't plan to spend an afternoon and or evening sitting down to watch a game, or tournament. The upside is I got a lot of knitting done. I was careful this time, as we have a small sedan, and trips to Grandad with all four of us usually mean the boot is full, and he sends us back with harvests from his fruit trees and his vegy garden. I knew we wouldn't have much boot space ... so I took one sock in progress to knit and my fish bag, with two little scrap balls of left over sock yarn, 2.25mm dpsn to knit fish on, a needle for the sewn cast off.


This is the toe and instep of Blue Sky Baby ... its designed with a french toe, so increases at 6 points, arranged in 3 spokes. In this sock they are very prettily arranged as a V on the top side of the toe,


with the third spoke centered under the toes. This is sock number 2 .. given I had much time to sit outside in the garden, and the evening inside with the Ruby 7's, I finished one sock, and made it up to the gusset increases on sock 2. Have I mentioned it is a pretty sock with a nice level of technical detail in the design? I like it.


Blue Sky baby is an anklet, so a shorter sock, which probably helped my speedy progress, I didn't have to knit a long leg section. I am very impressed by the tech support on this sock, I forgot some important information, and so txt'd Morag Saturday with a plea for help ... she txt'd back with the numbers I needed, and then latter that day txt'd further information that make knitting the sock much less stressful.


As usual - Yo-yo gatecrashed the sock photo shoot, because in her furry little head its all about her, and the only reason we would sit on the front step is to pet her and scratch that secret place that makes her relax and look even more dopey. Don't get me wrong, she is a neat cat, and a good mouser and rat catcher (shudder), and nabs a few birds ... but she can also be pretty dopey at times.

And fish, I added 2 or 3 fish to my haul so far ...I'm on an orange yellow red kick right now ... but I see that there will be a lot of ice blue as ankle socks don't take all of the 100g of hand dyed sock yarn.

so take care
have a relaxing week, its the week before the students descend on us .. and did I tell you in term 2 I'm scheduled to run a 3 week hand knitting elective? Lots to plan for ... I'm thinking they can identify 3 hand knitwear designers (past or present), and learn cast on, cast off, how to read a chart, and a pattern, make a chart and a pattern (after all its a design degree) and then design and make a pair of mitts? What do you think? I'd accept either a pattern for a mitt with swatches, or the mitts themselves ... that way the students get to take on an achievable project, and make something they might actually wear.

na Stella