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Garden Hands

7 May

I like to potter in my garden and I am finally seeing some results with fruits for my labour.   I also have a lovely pair of gloves to protect my hands, however I’m all fingers and thumbs when wearing them, so apart from when touching yucky stuff, I usually ditch the gloves.

Ditching the gloves causes dirty, rough hands which is a problem of a night when I like to indulge in my other hobbies of knitting, crochet and embroidery.  There  is nothing more annoying than thread catching on rough skin.

My solution is a home made hand scrub.  I made a batch today to share with some friends this Thursday.  If you would like a copy of my recipe leave me a message in the comments.

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Yarn Chicken

16 Feb

I’m nearly finished my Son’s jumper and it’s become a case of how much longer can I make it before I don’t have enough yarn to finish the ribbed band across the hem.

 

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As it happens, I had enough 🙂  Just needs a wash and pressing into shape, or in knitterly terms – blocking.

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Yarn Dying

14 Feb

I have some rather clever friends who like to dye knitting yarn.  One of the techniques they use is to paint the yarn on knitted fabric.  As I have a number of knitting machines I knit the undyed blanks ready for the dying.

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Am I There Yet?

8 Feb

DS needed some new work attire. He went shopping and managed to fend rather well for himself but I feel he needs some Mothers love.

Next time I feel that urge I will remember he is over 6 feet tall and has very long arms.

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Blocking

28 Jan

Finished is better than Perfect.

When knitting a shawl the final task is blocking.  This involves soaking the shawl and then stretching it out to dry.  It allows the work to relax into shape and for any lacework to open up.  These photos show the benefit of blocking, this shawl has ‘grown’ to almost twice the size it was straight off the needles.

©2017 Cathy Craig©2017 Cathy Craig

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Auditioning Buttons

24 Jan

The theme of this blog is Finished is Better than Perfect, something that certainly hit home today.  A cardigan for a niece in Canberra is almost finished (finally) it just needs the (perfect) buttons.  As anyone who has ever dabbled in knitting, sewing, crochet, quilting, embroidery in fact any creative art will know, there is always a button stash.  The biggest issue is usually finding enough of the ‘right’ button.  As the photos will attest, I might have found the ‘perfect’ button but I need 4 and only have 3. Which do you prefer?

©2017 Cathy Craig
©2017 Cathy Craig
©2017 Cathy Craig
©2017 Cathy Craig

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Capturing Colour

14 Jan

Todays experiment is about trying to capture accurate colour reproduction on a new knitting project.

©2017 Cathy Craig
©2017 Cathy Craig
©2017 Cathy Craig
©2017 Cathy Craig

These photos are based on changing two settings on the Olympus OMD em5-2.  One is white balance and the other is picture mode (natural and i-enhance).  The first two are wrong.  Interestingly, the last photo is the closest as far as the pink colour, however, the third photo is the one that appeals to my sense of ‘right’.   So there is more to colour than reproducing an exact representation of real life it seems.

 

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My other hobby

7 Jan

One of my other hobbies is to knit.  I am lucky to have a lovely Local Yarn Store that stocks some very tempting fibres.  This garment is for my youngest Niece Xanthe, she is rather lucky when it comes to hand knits from her Aunty – that may change as she grows, size 4 is quick to knit, size adult is not so quick.

Todays challenge was to photograph the finished garment with a little more pazazz than just draped on a chair in the house.  You be the judge.

©2017 Cathy Craig
©2017 Cathy Craig

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