New Pattern: Hemigraphis

I have just realised that in the excitement that is my life (okay, the sleeplessness of having a new baby) I have completely failed to post anything about my newest pattern.

So without further ado, here is Hemigraphis:



This is a floral shawl/shawlette with a triangular centre and wide semi-circular knitted on border. The border shaping uses short rows, and the two colours are carried the length of the edging with a floral band worked using both yarns held together. The floral band sits comfortably around the shoulders.

The large shawl pattern (purple and brown) uses laceweight/2 ply yarn, and the shawlette (blue and variegated) uses fingering/4 ply yarn. The heavier yarn makes the smaller shawl as it is designed to work for two 100g skeins.

Pattern has both written instructions and charts. There is a separate file with enlarged border charts for ease of reading (2 pages per chart). The enlarged charts also have stitch counts on the longer plain stockinette sections.




Available through Ravelry for NZ$7.00



I love how this sits around the shoulders, no bunching up at the back of the neck.

I have some rainbow coloured long repeat lace wool I want to use for another large shawl, once I decide what other colour to put with it. I think I'd also like to try the small one in a heavier yarn sometime, for a big warm version. And a couple of my testers did a single colour version, which had a slightly more delicate look.

Please excuse the rant...

For I-don't-know-how-long-now I have vaguely been keeping an eye on the housing market. Every now and then a house that seems like it might suit us shows up. So far they have all turned out to not be exactly what we'd be looking for in a new house, and we forget about it until the next one appears. There was one a while ago that was quite tempting, but it wasn't quite perfect, and we decided that it was going to be too much stress to try and get everything together to even have a hope of buying it.

And now there is another one that looks nice (at least in the listing). We're still waiting on any sort of payout from EQC, so it's all a bit of a gamble as to what we will get for our current house, but according to their timeframes (last time I checked) then that should have happened by the time this place would be auctioned. I'm not holding my breath.

It's very frustrating watching good-but-not-perfect houses pass us by, knowing that in a few months we may be more actively looking for something and they would have actually been quite acceptable. I hate not having a definite idea of what we could afford to buy. And I really hate trying to ring EQC for updates, because it seems like there's never any change.

I know we are lucky to have a borrowed house to live in, which means no daily financial stress, but I would love to be in our own home again!

Photos from last time

Little cardigan:


Pattern is Cascade, 3 month size, 6 month length. Yarn is Vintage DK by Skeinz, in colour Tapestry. I used 93g. Buttons have elephants on them, they are from Buttons by Benji

And this is cleared patch of garden:

You can see how horribly messy the rest of the garden is! It seems that whenever I reach the point where I feel like I'm starting to get on top of the garden, something happens to ruin that (earthquakes, babies etc)

And the happy little toadstools that I found:

Spring is here!

Which means I now have a 2 year-old. We took him out for a picnic and miniature train ride for his birthday, the best bit of the ride was the ticket...

We are going to a wedding in a month (SIL), so I have been busy making stuff. So far I have one pair of small trousers done apart from the hem, and tiny overalls that just have hand finishing to do. The shirts are both half done, I am taking advantage of my mother's overlocker on those. The overalls and small shirt are actually ones I failed to finish for the wedding we attended 18 months ago.
I am also making a tiny cardigan, just have one sleeve to finish, and I hope to block it tomorrow. There should be photos soon.

Yesterday I cleared a patch of garden to try planting things in for Eric,and in the process found a toadstool ornament which I think I will try to clean up and repaint for him. I have no idea what he'll make of a garden, but I'm sure he will have fun watering it at least. And if he manages to not destroy the plants I intend to put in then he will definitely enjoy eating the cherry tomatoes...