On my desk : July 9th

My desk today is all about knitting, and tea. (Nothing really new there is there?)

There's a brochure for High Tea at the Owlie bookshop, and a copy of Vickie Howell's Knit Aid which I bought there on Monday. (My only criticism of this book is that while the drawings are cute and stylish, when it comes to illustrating a stitch, they aren't really that clear.) My local Spotlight is having a Knitting Party, with 15x15 cm squares for charity blankies required, so that's been keeping me out of trouble lately (although I should be working on my Tour de France Knit Along project). The fancy pants stitch at the front is just made by doing one row of yarn forward, knit two together and then a row of knit etc.

And here's some good advice from Vicki:

Check out more desktops here.

Today's desktop

...is a bit bare really. But what's there is rather important. You can see the finished back and sleeves of a cardi knitted by me out of Cleckheaton's Vintage Hues yarn (highly recommended I might add, fab colours and lovely to knit with. Just have to do the front sections and Bob's your proverbial. Also importantly sitting there, my diary and the flight bookings for my little holiday to Airlie Beach next week. The Knitting Knazi decided she needed a Winter Sojourn and invited me along. Hurrah!

Why I want to be able to knit properly...

skirt, originally uploaded by drewzel.

so I can make stuff like this. This is knitted and modelled by my friend the Knitting Knazi, the pattern came from Knitty.com and is called "Intolerable Cruelty". Gotta love glam knitting...now if only my posterior looked as nice as this...

Bunny lurve

I have one bunny, Biccy. I'm a bunny lover, definitely. And so I loved this article on angora bunnies in Knitty. I've toyed with the idea of getting one, but this passage from above article set me straight:

I spend a ridiculous amount of time taking care of him. It takes 2 hours to
harvest his coat, which happens every month or two, and he needs brushing daily.
Sometimes Don helps. One day when we were busy combing out knots – I took the
head, he took the tail – I asked, “Do you think other couples do this
together?”“I'm sure they do,” he assured me, “in institutions.”

She knits

I'm still in an Autumnal knitting state of mind. Yesterday I went to K-mart and bought some of their 25% off wool (Cleckheaton Country Naturals in a pale apple green) as I have a Country Silk knitting book with patterns I love in it, and so, one day, I'll finish a cardy for me.

So today I've spent a little bit of time ogling the Cleckheaton site, which led me to pics of their new knitting pattern books here. And so I got all excited by this book...can't see myself in any of it, but the photos are super cool.

PS. this is the book I'm working from.