Monday 20 February 2012

still here – still crafting and researching

Well, I may be a bit quiet on the blog front but my computer time has been swallowed up by a resurgence in my interest in researching my family history. Anc*try is always adding new databases but recently they have added the London Electoral Register and I’ve been searching for where my family members were living. In Australia, home ownership is the norm so it’s strange to find people living in the same few rooms for upwards of twenty years – but that’s the nature of the place and time, I guess.

Anyway, I have also been sewing – I have almost finished a quilt top that started out as a scrappy coin quilt but has turned into something a little different. I have learnt a bit making this “flimsy” but I’ll post about that when I complete the top.

As for knitting, I was shopping at the Big Box Store for fabric but "just happened to wander through the yarn department. A ball of Moda Vera Noemi caught my eye. It was a little more expensive that I would normally pay for an acrylic/nylon blend but the long colour repeats got my attention so I bought one ball and cast on for a simple garter stitch shawl – letting the bouclé type yarn do all the work. I soon realised that one ball (273 yards) wasn’t going to go very far so added another five balls to my collection: one in the original colour way (“turquoise mix”) and two each of “purple mix” and “red mix”. I started the second ball of yarn at the opposite end so the colours change more logically.
2012 Noemi shawl #1

I’m reasonably happy with the result but have cast on a second shawl (using the “purple mix”) using needles three sizes larger (6:00mm US 10) and like the drape better.

11 comments:

  1. Wow. Lovely. I really need to learn to knit some day. You've been busy.

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  2. that's vibrant is it! Looks like your strategy of using different ends paid off.

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  3. Beautiful shawl! The bigger needles will make it go faster , too, which is nice when working with a variegated because it is hypnotic to watch the colors change under your finger tips! Glad all is well!

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  4. The colours in your shawl are fantastico!

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  5. Your shawl is lovely. Tracing family history can be such fun but also very frustrating at times I find.

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  6. Looks lovely.:)
    The yarn colours look a bit like Noro....:)

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  7. It's lovely! What great color choices.

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  8. I find that I never stop looking for any tips about my family. Sometimes its full on and others its when some new info appears.

    The shawl looks great - lovely colours

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  9. Family history is so very interesting. I must say, I've been caught up in mine as well. I'm just so grateful that my father wrote several chapters in a locally published history of our area kind of book. Unfortunately, my mom didn't even know her own as 'her people' as she called them didn't consider that important. Such a loss! I hope you are having fun and finding out lots and lots in between all of your stitching!!!

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  10. Glad you've been feeling better. I love your shawl, it looks great!

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