tiny happy

This week brought such heavy news – on top of the coronavirus continuing to cause suffering and death in almost every country in the world, my heart is breaking for the United States and its most recent incidence of state-sanctioned violence and murder.

One small thing i can do is donate money to organisations that contribute to change and I'll be doing that. My fellow citizens of Aotearoa: we can also write to the police and have our say on the recent Armed Response Team trial here, letting them know that we don't support the arming of our police force.

This evening, a Black Lives Matter vigil will be held in Wellington and another in Auckland, I believe – more info here. Black lives matter. George Floyd's life matters. Diversity in our own political representatives matters, too. It seems this is to be an ongoing struggle and i want to be part of the fight.

For the next couple of days, a knitwear designer I love, Nat Raedwulf, is donating 100% of all proceeds from sales of her patterns to organisations working towards social justice in the USA. You can find her patterns here. (A couple of years ago I knit this one and I love her work).

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In this post, I wanted to show you my latest finished piece of work – a colourful shawl I knit from Stephen West's Vertices Unite design. I loved working on this and surprised myself by finishing it within a few weeks – I put that down to having more time during lockdown life, and enjoying the interesting design and wanting to get to the next section all the time.

I used a range of yarns that I've had for ages – mostly all 4 ply merino-silk, and together they work to create a lovely soft and drapey shawl. I wanted to cast on another immediately (and still might). My sister's birthday is coming up, and I'd love to make one for her. Here are my Ravelry notes, in case you're interested in the specific colours I used and a link to the pattern.

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Last weekend we celebrated my niece's 2nd birthday, and i wanted to knit her a little hat with ears. I thought that even if she doesn't want to wear it to keep her warm through winter, it could be a fun dress-up piece. And it looked unbelievably cute on her too.

Her's is the pale pink one – and I made a matching grey one for her baby sister. These were really fun to knit and quick too. The design is clever – the back is shaped with short rows and edged with an i-cord that extends into the bonnet ties. I held one strand of mohair-silk together with merino-silk (incidentally, leftovers from my Vertices shawl!)

The pattern is called Baby Bear Bonnet and is by a Danish designer Pernille Larsen.

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It's the first day of winter. Tom and I have just finished watching the TV adaptation of Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries which I enjoyed – such beautiful aesthetics in that production and even though it describes a dark and grim place I found myself wanting to visit the South Island's West Coast again.

Music-wise, I'm still listening often to this album, Out of my Province, by Nadia Reid, hearing something new each time. And everything by Anderson .Paak – especially his album Oxnard and this Tiny Desk concert of his.

See you again soon, lovely friends.