Big Purple Thang

We spent the weekend down at Moe with George's mum, going over paperwork - I seem to have become the official filler-in-of-forms because I can, when required, write in large clear capitals. Rather surprisingly exhausting. Baby Bear was off on a church youth group camp down on the Peninsula somewhere, where apparently she had great fun and has come back apparently full of a desire to be baptised and confirmed. Good for her, we always thought it best to leave it up to the children to decide whether they wanted to do this sort of thing for themselves, not impose it on them as babies. My only real concern is whether she will want to be baptised in our own pool in a sparkly bikini, and if this would really count as Sacred Space!!

Wombat coped well with the weekend - it was fun for him to be the only child, and he had free run of the TV and DVD player, but he also had to do a lot of sitting around waiting for grown ups to fill in forms and photocopy things. He lasted very well, really, and was rewarded on Sunday morning by a nice long visit with his big cousins D and L. They all played companionably on computer games and watched The Simpsons. He's got another heavy cold now, though, and is off school. We gave him a Gamecube for his birthday (second hand) and he has played on it all day today.

I decided that I wouldn't do anything that involved concentration as he is clingy and constantly wants attention, so I've caught up on reading emails, done some scrumbling and played altogether too many games of Snood, in between providing drinks and the occasional snack and very frequent cuddles.

No progress pics of anything, but plenty of knitting progress to report. The socks that were excelklent car knitting on the trip to Albury have continued to be car knitting, with the result that I am about ready to do the heel on the second sock. I am using a very jolly Regia in the predominant colours of red, white and blue, with flashes of green and black - George calls them the Tyrolean socks.

The Big Purple Thang of the title is one the three designs I am working on for the next Sheepeasy Patterns. It's a drapey vest knitted in a myriad of, mostly, purples (with bits of pink and green and orange and a little glitter here and there). It is designed so that you can pin it on either side, or allow it to drape - at least I hope that's how it will work out! I am nearly three-quarters of the way through it, though admittedly I haven't worked in any ends as I go so that will take extra time at the end! I have been tossing up edging ideas - it is mostly stocking stitch, with generous ribbing on the fronts - and am still thinking about that.

The other two designs that will be appearing sometime soon are a scrumbled hat - completed ages ago but still waiting writing up - and the scarf I am doing for Celia's Scarf Exchange. I am well on the way with the scarf. I have knitted the body of it - a relatively narrow and plain scarf in a K2 P2 rib, in a Bendigo Woollen Mills 5 ply Rustic in a dark teal (more green than anything else, really) - and have been working on scrumbles to embellish it with over the last couple of days. It will be ready in time for the deadline and I hope the recipient appreciates it!! As it is an original design I thought I may as well write up the pattern for it to sell on the site.

I have numerous other ideas for original designs that will follow in due course - there will probably be a scrumbled bag and shoulder shawls coming out next, plus I am toying with some scarf ideas.

The scrumbled hat would have been done by now if I had pulled my finger out, but for some reason writing the patterns seems to be so much harder than thinking them up in the first place!