Polly want a cracker..

Nope, Polly wants to be a part of your new project.
Knitting project that is!

Befuddled... let me explain.

I was perusing the lovely array of colors in the wool isle down at my local Lincraft and came across something called 'Polly'. Tis a new ball of fiber made of polyester.

'Interesting' ...thought I.

The color range was awesome and price fair, so I put in a call to trusted fiber expert ... MUM, to see what this new stuff was.

Being the yarn guru, she had already heard of it and given it a whirl burl on the machine. Machine says no...unfortunately, to loosely woven to play nicely with the knitting machine. I couldn't resist the urge to buy pretty colors though so got some for a try on the old crochet stick.
The red is vibrant and the green is not like any other green I've seen there, so I grabbed those and a few purples, pinks and blues to try.

It does seem to look and feel thinner when made up. But that little gauge thingy on the side says it should knit up a 10 cm piece on same size needles, with the same amount of stitches as the 8ply 'Superwash', which is 100% wool.

My latest completed scarf alongside the new pink and navy squares in 'Polly'.

I have used a white in the 'Superwash' wool alongside a navy and pink 'Polly' and you can tell the difference that's for sure. But it's not highly unpleasant and I'm no snob when it comes to Yarn.

Wool, acrylic, silk or Cotton. They each have there own appeal and for me the appeal of 'Polly' is the awesome color range.

Whats you favorite product to knit or crochet with?
Jay xx

P.s
I've finished some new gloves and resin jools, just click on my 'Finki range' tab, up top for a sticky beak and don't forget to keep you're thinking caps on tree's for this months challenge. I've almost made up my mind what I'll make.
Jewellery or skirt, that's my dilemma.
Catch yah soon.

Wet weather timetable...

Remember when it rained on a school day and the teachers would declare it 'wet weather timetable'. Which meant the mud pit of an oval was off limits and activities were confined to the library or class room.

Well, during winter I tend to take on my own wet weather timetable too.

Instead of screen printing, which requires a lot of water and screen cleaning or jewellery making in my freezing studio, I'll come up with activities that require a heated room, a table for hot tea and possibly even a couch to stretch out on. Bliss...

Our little blast of winter weather this week, has had me scrounging around to find the crotchet hooks I bought last winter and get busy with some wool.


Eager to be doing something with my hands even though I didn't have desirable wool in the house, I got the old 'Readers digest guide to needlework' out and reacquainted myself with the granny square.

After a day of crocheting hideous color combinations with a needle that was far too small for my ply, I faced the weather with kids in tow and went shopping for some wool.

I knew I'd be like a kid in a candy shop when presented with so much color, so I sensibly planned a few cushion panels in advance. Preselecting my colors, so that I wouldn't come home with some random mix of gaudiness.

Lincraft do have some affordable acrylics in a veritable rainbow of colors, but today they just didn't cut it. I had in my mind colors like , fuchsia, moss and lavender....denim, cherry and slate, but the acrylics, while vast indeed, only came in your basic rainbow. No denim, moss or fuchsia to be seen.
So I had to stray to the other shelves and find my colors. Only to be faced with the conundrum of a beautiful 5ply...a great 12 ply and a sort of o.k 8 ply.

Now I don't know much about knitting and crotchet, but I'm pretty sure that if i started messing up my ply's I'd get all sorts of weird shapes and tensions going on.

So of course what I thought would take 5 minutes took an hour of walking back and forth through the wool isles mumbling to myself...that ones 8, what was that other one,...that ones mohair and that's bamboo won't work....hmmmm!

Who woulda' thunk it would be so hard.

In the end and had to bite the bullet on my perceived dollar value of a ball of wool and pay up to $7 a ball to get some of the colors I so desired. OUCH!


So after a few hours of crocheting .... I have all the bits for one cushion cover ready.
Definitely a labour of love. Well that and the fact that I'm probably a very slow crocheter.

But it's coming up roses and It's a lovely craft that makes me feel I'm still being somewhat sociable by being able to do it in the lounge room instead of locked away in the study.

A lovely wet weather timetable indeed.