Too Many Distractions

I had hoped to put up some photo's of my finished stole but I haven't finished it as I have had some distractions (namely Ravelry) so I have not done much knitting.

So I thought I would put up some local scenery and tell you a little about the area in which I live.

The picture at the left is a creek that runs along the back of the property it in fact forms one of the borders that separates us from Mr 50 Acres, who lives next door (he earned that nickname when he first introduced himself and told me within 2 sentences that he owned 50 acres) this creek starts a couple of km up the road from a natural spring and it winds its way towards the Silvan water catchments. It forms a waterfall just over the border and whilst you are in the garden you can hear the water falling down through the rocks, and its a beautiful sound.

To find this waterfall, you must walk through a wood with trails leading off in every direction, and its not human trails you are following, you are following the tracks of the wallabies, deer, wombats and other wild creatures that use these tracks to get to the water. I am fortunate to be able to watch kookaburra's on hot days using the creek to find frogs and diving from branches above the creek into the water to find these tasty morsels of food.

Although the drought is in evidence everywhere, this at least is one place where water still flows and I am a very lucky lucky girl to be able to see the beauty of Australia in my own backyard.

The walking pin-cushion

This little fellow appeared in my garden today, enjoying the spring weather. its an Echidna, and when he heard me coming he quickly buried his head so he couldn't see me......obviously forgot that he had a body to hide as well, maybe he can get rid of some of the 2 inch ants that walk around here

Sort of looks like a tree stump doesn't he?

Love Is...............

Jojoland Harmony (880mtres per 50g) aka Yarntreehouse Yarns on Ebay. Cobweb weight lace yarn Colour Co5

Pattern from my falling apart copy of Harmony Guide to Knitting Stitches called falling leaves and knitted on 3mm needles. Although its very fine to work with I just love this yarn, makes me want to hold it, pet it, squeeze it and just love it....... and its all mine mine mine! Bwahahahah :)

A Lunchtime visitor.

This little fellow is one of the regular visitors to my house, He is a King Parrot, and his plummage is neon orange, with green, this little fellow pops in and stays a couple of hours feeding. I also get Eastern Rosella's with bright red and blue feathers, another visitor is a little bright eyed blue tit, that absolutely loves his own reflection. My favorite of course, is the king parrot who comes up to my window to call me when he wants some food and who now lets me hand feed him........its a simple pleasure but its good!

No Parking here

I wanted to show you the differences between knitting through the back loop as opposed to knitting through the front and so I dragged out a doll I had been working on late last year, but had put down because I had made a mistake and didn't want to fix it.

Turns out that I couldn't fix it but that wasnt too bad I only had to reknit the body, so I dragged out the yarn and started knitting. Then I compared what I had knitted from months ago with my newly knitted piece. The piece on the left is the one I knitted months ago, tension is loose, stitches are huge (big enough to park a truck in!). Now the piece on the right, stitches are even, tension is good, and the garage space has been taken out of the stitches. I much prefer the look of the right hand piece, so I think I'm going to keep on knitting through the front, it may give me the prod I need to get back into knitting things like cardigans and sweaters, something I sort of gave up on because my gauge never seemed to be accurate, it must be harder to get a good tension through the back loop, maybe because you don't have as good a control over the yarn feeding to the stitch, whereas through the front loop you do.

The doll by the way is The Mad Hatter by Alan Dart part of a series of The Alice in Wonderland Story and no he is not finished yet, but I will get to him once I finished this er, um (mumble) lace pattern...........!

The Mojo is back

I took a break from knitting for a couple of days, my recent problems with my stitches had soured my enthusiasm somewhat, but I'm stubborn, I don't like being beaten and so I sat down and did some swatches, and then I did some more swatches, I practised my new knit stitch (its so pretty!) I practised my leaning decreases, I researched different stitches, and finally came up with my solutions to the problems I had.
Today I cast on for Leda's Dream and managed to knit the first rows of the chart without a problem (and my knitting is looking neat rather than untidy as it used to do yay!) In my research I was rather surprised to find that knitting through the back stitch actually uses more yarn than knitting through the front I didn't think that there would be a difference but apparently there is!

I did eventually find a group called gnittink-for-lefties and they gave me some valuable pointers to help with left handed knitting and they are a wonderful bunch of people over 300 members all happy to share their knowledge. I'm also into Kal's that are ongoing at the moment, well one starts tonight the other started last week, I haven't cast on yet preferring to wait for a little while to see if I like the patterns and whether I will have to mirror-image the patterns (if there is any short-rows in the pattern I will have to reverse the patt) I didnt reverse the chart for MS3 and ran into a big brick wall when they began the wing...

Finally I am still waiting for my invite from Ravelry Im 845 in the queue, and am hoping I will be in either Sunday or Monday, I have heard a lot about ravelry and am curious to see what its all about, I think the idea of a whole bunch of knitters in one place is great so I can't wait to see it all.

Just don't call me backwards.....

I am left-handed, and so have a few difficulties to overcome when I knit lace. (I knit from right to left i.e my knitting piece is held in my right hand and I use the left hand to create the new stitch) A lace chart means I must mirror image the chart, and change the symbol meanings. For left and right decreases for a regular knitter the symbol for a k2tog is / which is the way they are knitting (from left to right) I on the other hand am knitting from the opposite direction and if I want the decrease to lean the same way I would knit a sl1,k1, psso this would create the same stitch as for a regular knitter. (if I was to knit the k2tog as stated in the pattern my stitch would come out as \) I have also discovered that knitting 2tog thru the back loop will also create a stitch going in the same direction as if I knitted thru the front loop which makes it a hell of a lot easier when doing the k2togs!

Why am I telling you this, because I'm tired as being told I'm a lost cause cause I knit "backward" I read the same way I knit, in fact a page is laid out like I knit you read it left to right not right to left I'm tired of prospective knitters being told they must learn to knit this way, chances are people who are told that won't take up knitting as a recreation.

In order to cater to the "backwards" knitter as far as I can see, it would take a chart mirror- imaged and the decrease and increase symbols swapped but apparently publishers don't know how to edit (the obvious question I have is what the $%^&* are they doing publishing then!!!!)
Whilst it may have been difficult in the past to cater for "backward" knitters, in the computer day and age it seems ludicrous that left-handers are not catered for and that information for the left-handers is scarce, I have seen several videos of people knitting backward and there is a lot of mis-information, no "experts"for the lefties. There is information for reverse knitting (which is knitting left and right handed this has the effect of not having to purl as in circular knitting)
I have attempted to knit right-handed and I can do it verrrry slooowly but contorting my right hand into the positions that are required for knitting right handed are more pain than my fingers can bear).
I don't class myself as an expert, heavens there's a lot I don' know still about knitting but my difficulty is increased when I have to stop and interpret patterns to suit my left-handedness and I am paying the same price for my patterns as right handers shouldn't my needs be catered for in the same way?

So just who is backward me...... or the publishers?