March 2 2007

Well its been quite a long time between postings on Knit1Blog1. There has been a very hot Christmas, New Year and summer holidays at the seaside. All relaxing and celebrating aside, its now time to really knuckle down on the Knit1Blog1 project.

Bronwen and I met up the other night and Bronwen introduced me to the fine art of casting wool onto needle. It has been too many years between my grandmother teaching a rather impatient 10 year old girl - to now. Eventuually I figured out I didn't need to hold the needles vertically up at eye level, that I could actually relax my shoulders and consequently my wool tension by holding the needles horizontally in front of me.

Bronwen introduced me to the easy cast on style of wrapping the wool around your thumb and picking up the loop with the needle, which I immediately jotted down in my notes so that I would never forget.

A couple of hours ruminating on why people blog, what it was that Bronwen was knitting (a beautiful bag), what it was that I was actually knitting (rows) and calming nervous children and dogs as a spectacular storm was brewing outside, ensued.

Bronwen showed me some photos she took of some knitted entries at the Royal Canberra Show which was on in Canberra 24 & 25 Feb this year. There was a spectacular and winning entry of some knitted bears playing tennis (everything was knitted, the racquets, the ball and ground and the net!), a wonderful octopus and a very fine outfit for a doll - think Penelope Cruz in her 2007 Oscar frock and you may get a sense of this outfit to die for.

It was a memorable night not just for knitting but also for the weather. Canberra had a a freak superstorm, cloaking the city in a white robe of ice - a veritable sea of hailstones fell from the sky creating a winter landscape in summer that not even our winter climate can produce. I narrowly made it home ten mintues before the lighting and thunder were over head followed by the eerie sound of the massive hail storm falling on the CBD just 3 kilometres away, and then watching as the edge of the storm came overhead leaving a more gentle and less dense fall of stones on our house and yard. Can you knit a covering for climate change, one that shelters from the hot hot sun and one the shelters from the harsh hail as well?

I feel I am beginning a new lifestyle as last night I picked up my needles and did a few extra rows. Already ambitious thoughts abound of what I might knit but in all reality, the pride I feel for knitting two more rows is the culmination of my talent at the moment.

This morning I thought I would spend an hour on posting a comment and checking out some knitting blogs but 2.5hrs later I had to drag myself away from the musingndoing blog by Ling. I think this is going to addictive as I read on about being inspired to knit or not and delving in to the February of Ling's blog, which I came to from Monna from Knit Knut's blog site, a great blog of handy knitting, stitching and quilting, which I came to from Meowgirl's site, which I always like to check out.

I saw a great pattern on chic knits as well and when I checked out the wool on Scouts Swags I couldn't believe the range of colours let alone the names such as hot fudge sunday, purple people eater and snakes on a skein. My knitting universe has expanded.

I am still looking around at the objects that people are making and next week I aim to pluck up the courage to comment on someone's blog.