tiny happy

Last weekend we went for a walk along the Wellington coastline, exploring the rock pools. When the children were little we used to spend a lot of time looking for crabs and starfish and collecting seaweed of different varieties. I still love rock pools and coastline walks and find them deeply peaceful and need to remember to visit that part of our city more often. 

I finished that green hat i was knitting a few posts back – it was a birthday gift for my brother-in-law. I used this pattern (free on Purl Soho) and some olive green Silver Lining DK which is one of my favourite local yarns. My pattern notes, etc are here on Ravelry.

I did enjoy making this hat but it seemed to take me forever to finish (in reality, it was probably a week of evenings) because the 1 x 1 rib is knitted at quite a tight gauge on size 3.25mm needles. The finished result is a dense, stretchy hat with a long foldover-brim which I hope will be cosy for cold South Island winter mornings.

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Also above: some embroidered daisies, just because. It's been a while since I opened my box of embroidery supplies. I think I needed a break after doing a lot of it last year. But it was fun to work some embroidery with a cup of coffee and the radio last Saturday morning.

Speaking of the radio, I listened to this programme this morning: Desert Island Disks, with Louis Theroux. If you're a D.I.D fan, or you know Louis Theroux's work, I think you'll like it! I do so enjoy that BBC podcast.

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I've also been knitting slippers. I made some for Tom a couple of autumns ago but the sole of that pair has almost completely worn through. Not a bad problem – I love that they're so well used! This time i'm using a fairly rustic marled yarn that i bought in the Woolyarns sale last year and I think it should hold up to a lot of wear. I'm using my own pattern, which is really just a variation on this excellent one. 

While the marled yarn feels quite scratchy on the cone and to knit with, after washing it softens up a lot. I think it has some spinning oil in it that washes out after knitting. Hopefully, in my next post I will be able to show you three pairs of finished slippers!