... for my yarn stash that is. My order from The Sweet Sheep arrived today. Inside were three skeins of beautiful red yarn made up of 70% merino wool and 30% possum fibre. Possum!

 
It’s Possum Worsted by Cherry Tree Hill. Each skein is 50 grams and 109 yards and knits up at 4.5 stitches to the inch on size 8 (5.00 mm) needles. It is so lovely and squashy and soft.  The red is nice and rich and the yarn has just a little bit of a halo to it - from the possum I guess. I don’t know exactly what it will be yet but whatever it is will be wonderful. How could it not be ... it’s made with possum yarn!
 
I also got this yummy confection, also from Cherry Tree Hill. It’s 450 yards of merino sock yarn though the skein is twisted so tightly you’d never guess it.

It will make some bright socks to warm my toes this winter.
 

 
In other news I have sewn one of the shoulder seams for Rob’s sweater and started the collar. It took me three tries to be satisfied with my seaming efforts - things seem to show more with this bulky yarn - but it looks pretty good now. I’m seven rows into the collar. The weight of the sweater makes it slower going than I’d thought but if I work on it a little bit every night it will still be finished by the weekend. I’m going to be blocking the sleeves tonight so they will be ready for seaming when the collar is finished.

This is the result of my drafting out that Japanese pattern last week. I asked Rob to sound out the name of it for me and it turned out to be “linen blouse” - just replace all the L’s with R’s and put a little emphasis on the E at the end of blouse - that’s pretty close to how it sounds. Mine is actually made from some cotton batiste left over from this summer’s Regency costuming.
 
I decided, based on the other diagrams with the pattern and some guessing that my Sashiko book was originally printed in Japanese (same sorts of diagrams and the English text is really squished), that seam allowances were probably not included in the pattern. It is intended to be loose anyway so I didn’t think an inch or so would really make much difference. I cut out the pieces (front, black, sleeves and bias binding) on Sunday afternoon and I got to try it on at about nine o’clock. I like quick patterns.
 
The 1 cm seam allowance was very nice to work with, especially on such lightweight fabric. To finish the seams I just ran a zig-zag stitch next to the seam and trimmed off the excess fabric. I took some extra space on the armhole seams to make sure they wouldn’t be too tight.
 

 
This shirt is very comfy. I might put a longer elastic in the neck band; right now it pulls the underarm fabric kind of strangely. It’s got a bit of a pear shape to it when you wear it (the bottom is very full) so it might not be a good style if you’re concerned about your hips. I don’t really mind so long as I’m cozy. I think it might be cute with slightly puffier sleeves too. The weather is a bit cool for this now but it is going to be wonderful next summer. I might even make a second one, with a few alterations, or one of the other patterns - maybe with a cute print from the nani IRO line at Purl Soho.
 
 
Zeke was “helping” me out again yesterday. Since I couldn’t finish my seam I got out the camera instead. He’s a very obliging model.

 

 

This is my wedding bouquet. I’m certain that our photographer has some lovely pictures of it so I’ll save detail shots until then. It is made of felt, beads, wire, floral tape, lace, silk and yarn. I spent most of Friday working on it and I was really pleased with the way it turned out. Robhad a matching boutonniere of a small white flower and a couple of the tiny blue flowers with two leaves. The lace was my something old - it was left over from my grandmothers wedding dress. I was a little worried that my bouquet wouldn’t survive the toss (I knew I could put it back together but I didn’t want anyone to get hurt on the wires trying to catch it) but it performed its job well and was caught by my cousin Rochelle.