Experimenting with hemp

After all my plotting and planning for some suitably summery knitting, I ordered some hemp and cotton yarn from South Seas Knitting. It has now arrived in my hot little hands, mwahahahaaa...

Hemp for Knitting Allhemp3 (4ply) and Allhemp6 (8ply)

Habu Textiles Non Twist Cotton Boucle (2ply)

 
I have a cunning plan for the Habu cotton, but as I've used cotton yarn before on occasion, I was more excited about trying out the hemp!

I have it on good authority (thanks Mum) that hemp yarn softens up a lot after washing and wear, so I wasn't alarmed by the stiff rope-like texture of the Allhemp yarns. I gave the skeins a wash and let them dry, so that the yarn would be a bit softer and more pleasant to knit with. A word to the wise: unless you're washing a skein of yarn very gently, do tie some extra bits of scrap yarn around the skein to keep it tidy. I didn't bother, and the vigorous washing resulted in some pretty stubborn spaghetti monsters...

Now ready to get knitting, I got out my stitch dictionaries and played around with a few open, lacy stitch patterns. Two skeins of the 4ply hemp are going to become a scarf or shawl for Willie, so I tried striping some of the stitch patterns to see what happened.

The colours are 'Aubergine' and 'Chocolate' - an unlikely combo!

I like this 'knotted openwork' stitch with the two colours in play.

We'll need to do some more sketching and thinking, but narrowing down the stitch pattern choices is a good start. :)

The other 4ply skein of hemp will become a hair-tamer for me. I've been trying to come up with a stitch that looks like the black, bobbly seaweed that's common on New Zealand beaches. The colour of the yarn ('Licorice') reminded me of it, and it's a nice summery image. I'm having trouble getting the bobbly bits right, but I think I'm getting there. I still have a few permutations to work through, and I'll probably reduce the width too.

The 8ply hemp yarn, on the other hand, has already become a hat! It's nice and slouchy and airy, just what I was going for. It's also nice and simple. :)

A hat, not a mutant green jellyfish (honest)...

A walk in the park

A few days ago I continued my exploration of Melbourne with a wander around Treasury Gardens and the adjoining  Fitzroy Gardens. It was very pleasant! Lots of huge trees, birds, and other folks enjoying a bit of greenery.

Treasury Gardens, just off Spring St. (click to enlarge pics)

Local wildlife: office workers taking lunchtime naps

Over the road to Fitzroy Gardens

The Conservatory, full of colourful flowers and talkative tourists

Ducks on patrol! 'Wood ducks' according to my Field Guide phone app.

A cool old tree, with St Patrick's spire in the distance

In my natural habitat

Yesterday I spent my Saturday afternoon at the library. ;)

I'd visited the State Library before, in my one previous trip to Melbourne, and thought it a very pretty and relaxing place to be. Now that I have more time to explore, I had a proper look around the collections. It's not a lending library - it's more like NZ's National Library, where you use the books etc while you're there, and photocopy/scan whatever you need to take away.

I had lunch on the sunny lawn outside, and then sniffed out where the music scores are kept. It turns out they have their own room! I think there are more scores in storage, that you can ask for if you want them, but the selection on the shelves was pretty good. There were plenty of composers I hadn't heard of, which is always a good sign...

Mmmm, French Baroque!

Medieval goodies...

I had a good rummage through the Baroque-era stuff, hunting down solo soprano pieces I haven't sung before. I ended up photocopying a couple of entertainingly frilly Vivaldi pieces (Nulla in mundo pax sincera, and Amor hai finto), and the two solo Leçons de ténèbres by Couperin. I'd better brush up on my French-style Latin pronunciation... :)

When I was done wrangling the photocopier, I had a wander around some of the other collection rooms and the reading rooms. There were hardly any free seats to be had! I'll have to come back on a weekday, snag a comfy chair, and spend some quality time with the music journals.

One of the reading rooms, with the books around the perimeter

 

More books upstairs!

The dome in the La Trobe reading room

Pretty fancy!

Love the little green lamps. :)

Oh look, a knitting post

Although I'm working on a laceweight merino scarf right now for a new design, my mind has been on summer knits of late, as the weather warms up...

Two of my knitted shawls made it into my reduced Melbourne wardrobe: my Bright Side, and my trusty black Damson. They've been very useful on windy days, but I suspect it will soon be too warm to wear wool around my neck! I like to have something to keep the wind and sun off (plus I just think shawls look cool), so I've been plotting to make a lacy lightweight shawl or two, and a light summer top.

Cotton, linen, and hemp are the classic fibres for summer knitting, and I've found some lovely cotton yarn at my LYS Morris & Sons, in a ton of pretty colours. I also have my eye on some Habu cotton and Hemp for Knitting yarn on the South Seas Knitting website. They're going on hiatus soon, so I'll have to get a move on and make my mind up! Holland Road has a gradient-dyed cotton I'd love to try, called Wolle's Yarn Creations. Also, Melbourne's Dairing stocks a lot of interesting fibres, including some blended with stainless steel. I definitely need to go and check them out.

There are some neat patterns out there for summer knits using these cooler fibres. Click the pics to go to their Ravelry pages...

Plover Summer Beach Shirt by Melissa Schaschwary

Gemini by Jane Richmond

Celine by Cecily Glowik MacDonald

Spearmint Tea by Kateryna Golovanova

Aethercopter by Jocelyn Tunney

I really want to make the Plover top and the Celine hat. They look like they would suit me and be really practical. As for shawls, I have a couple of design ideas sketched out, one for Willie and one for me. ;)

A Grand Day Out

I turned 33 on Saturday, and celebrated with a trip to Melbourne Zoo with Willie, our flatmate Matt, and Willie's sister Chloe. Chloe has a car. ;)

When we arrived at the zoo, we headed straight for the monkeys and apes. My favourite animal to visit at Wellington Zoo is the capuchin monkeys, and Melbourne's capuchins were just as fun to watch. They're small, brown, clever, and agile, and so remind me of my family's cat Hazy. Willie loved watching the gorillas, and kept remarking that they're just like humans. One of them was fidgeting with its fingers in a very familiar way!

My very favourite part of the zoo was the Butterfly House. It's a warm, humid glasshouse full of plants and flying butterflies. They like to land on people, which was quite magical! Willie took this video of the butterflies:

Nectar-stations and plants for laying eggs on

What a lovely brooch!

Another colourful charmer was the peacock who was competing with the seagulls for stray chips...

And as incredible as the real live elephants were, the painted Mali elephant sculptures were a sight to be seen! We had great fun exploring all the different paint jobs and textures. The painted herd was recently scattered around the city for people to happen across, but now they've been gathered up to be auctioned to fund conservation projects.

A steampunk elephant

A psychedelic one

Annnnnd... a knitted one!

 

When we finally left the zoo we went for a drive to Brunswick to grab a bite to eat from Chloe's favourite Lebanese bakery, and then headed back to our apartment for a rest and a lovely swim in the pool.

Our vague plan of cake-baking didn't end up materialising, as we were too tired from walking around the zoo and too relaxed from our long soak in the spa pool! Luckily low-key birthdays are my favourites. :)