Turtle Neck Vest

Here is another finished UFO that has been in my stash for a while now. Well, it's not quite finished. It is sitting gathering dust, sulking on my dressing table until I am able to go back to it to redo the shoulders and armholes. I'm not happy with the way the armholes sits. It curls up under itself at the back. I'm not broad shouldered - it's more my shoulder shape than a fault with the pattern. So I'll have to rip back and re-knit it. My hair is hiding it in the pics.

The Pattern is :- Turtleneck Vest from Eclectic - a Jo Sharp pattern book.

Frosty Mornings

Winter has greeted us with frosty mornings lately, which is very exciting for Lou, who thinks it's snow - and that must mean it's Christmas time! He doesn't understand that we live in the Southern Hemisphere and that it is usually hot at Christmas time for us, but he took great delight in telling any passer by on the bush track that it was Christmas time.

We found this cocoon. I'm not sure what it is but it has put itself in a precarious position on the bridge - straight underneath us was a steam of icy cold water. Lou found this little sticky insect sleeping bag quite interesting. We were wondering if its inhabitant has survived the cold or if it has perished in the cold overnight temperature.

Today I brought my camera on our morning walk, set it to macro and snapped away. I love the way the ice crystals have formed around this bridge nail. The bridge was covered in ice - little feet had to tread very carefully because it was very slippery.

These ice crystals look like hundreds of little stalagmites frozen onto the leaves and stems of the plants in the valley.

We do get snow occasionally here but it not enough to cover the ground. It tends to melt on impact. But my kids live in hope that one day this winter we will get an overnight fall of snow to cover the ground................:)

Noro Vest Design 26

Winter is here today and it's really cold up here in the Mountains. I'm sure it's snowing somewhere very close - I can feel the ice in the wind.

Autumn has skipped me by. I had all these ideas to post some beautiful autumny pictures on my blog. I've just been so busy, time has just flown by. I just haven't been on the computer all that much at the moment. I seem to go through phases of being on the computer a lot but in the last few months I seem to be on it a lot less. I have all these pictures I have taken that I can blog about but my life seems to be pulling me in another direction - which is not the computer! So sorry if I haven't been dropping in and commenting on your blogs in the last 2 months.

Well, I have gotten some knitting projects done, so I'm getting through my UFO's and ordering some wool on line as well. Webs have had a big sale.

This vest I started about 2 years ago. I made silly mistakes from sleep deprivation so I frogged it and started again. My knitting speed is getting faster - I got this vest finished in 3 days, which amazed me. I was sick in bed with a gastro bug so that's where I found the time to knit (after I stop chucking my guts up LOL...:) ).

The vest pattern is from Jenny Watson Noro Mini Knits Two. The wool I used is Noro Kureyon.

I found the increases on the side made it a little bit baggy on me under the arms and the back. If I was to knit it again, I wouldn't knit the increases on the back piece - maybe knit a few more stitches in the beginning. I didn't knit the 1x1 rib around the arm that the pattern stated. I just knitted 4 rows. The wooden button is from Lincraft.