Lenora Jenkins Designs

Unpacking the bags

We have been away on a family holiday exploring the beautiful Limestone Coast of South Australia. It was such a lovely time away, so nice to be able to put the feet up and relax.

A little mishap before we left meant that an extra set of 'legs' had to accompany us on the journey! We were hoping that the plaster could have been replace with a 'Boot' before we left, but it was not to be. 

 

We based ourselves in Robe, a lovely coastal town in the South East of South Australia. With a lot of the water activities off the menu, day trips in the car became our main entertainment.

 

 

 

 

 

It really is such a beautiful region to explore.

The beautiful coastline around Beachport.

The World Heritage Listed Naracoorte Caves.

The large Sink Hole in the centre of Mount Gambier, (to give you an idea of the enormity of this hole, they are large, green, bench seats sitting at the bottom)

and Mount Gambier's magnificent Blue Lake.

I am disappointed not to have taken any photos of the lovely Coonawarra wine region, the large cropping areas we passed through and the lovely shops around Robe.

As is now tradition, I took a knitting project with me. I have had a skein of sock wool for just over 12 months, and I have been looking at it with a mixture of fear and determination. For some reason sock knitting scares me, give me Fair Isle, give me Aran, but don't give me sock.

Determined to overcome the fear, I armed myself with two books, one of which contains a DVD.

I followed the instructions, watched the DVD, and now I have this.

(Sorry, you may just have to kink your head to get the real view.) I still have the toes to do, but so far so good, and I am even getting comfortable with all those needles. It is a basic, plain pattern, but just what I needed.

So as the sun shines down on the last of my holiday laundry, and my woolly fix is tended to, I am off to the sewing room.

Back again soon,

Lenora X.

 

 

The Christmas Wanties

Does it happen to you? Do you go Christmas shopping only to find things that you would absolutely LOVE for yourself. It happens to me EVERY year. However hard I try not to look for myself, I always find things.

Quite often it is a book. (Oh, I do love books).

I found this lovely book sitting patiently on the shelf, just waiting for me.

It is a treasure trove of information and lovely photographs.

The perfect way to end a busy day, reading a lovely book with a hot cup of tea.

Hopefully the wanties will just stop here.

Lenora X.

My crochet journey begins.

In all the rush of packing and heading off on holiday (then the excitement of sharing it), I forgot to mention that my patterns are now finished. It feels a lot like finishing that last exam of the year. It has been a great journey for me; one that took a lot longer than I ever dreamed it would, but sometimes life just goes that way. I am so thankful to all you ladies who have signed up, I really hope you love and look forward to your parcel arriving each month. X.

 

For a few weeks now I have been resisting the urge to crochet. As I have mentioned previously, it has been years since I last crocheted, and really, it was just one big granny square. Around and around with three trebles and every so often a corner with four chain. I have been stalking a lot of knitting/crochet blogs, and I discovered this Japanese book that I just had to have.

You see I fell in love with this.

Which lead me to buy this.

Rowan Hand knit cotton, DK. I fell in love with the vibrancy of the colours, and the gentle graduation from light to dark across the colours. Perfect.

I have been hatching this yarn for over two whole months, not even looking at it until the patterns were completed. It took a lot of discipline, but I knew that once I started I would not be able to stop. So with the patterns done, the holidays were the perfect time to make a start.

I got to work and made one of these;

Opps don't look at that obvious join, I have since worked out that I was joining to the wrong part of the starting chain.

It doesn't look too bad here in the picture, but in actual life it is quite loopy on the outer borders, which then lead me to try another pattern, Lucy's hexagons to see if it was my tension that was the problem.

I am really happy with these, and yes they sit very flat.

If I can back track a little, I must tell you about the Japanese Book. 

As you would expect, it is in Japanese. Not a huge problem, my children learn Japanese at school and I have access to Hiragana charts. My children often talk about what they have learnt in Japanese, and I thought they may be of some help. The book also charts all the patterns, and the charts are quite self explanatory.

However, when the book arrived I looked at the pictures.... often. Then I started to wonder what all the text was saying. Such a beautiful book, so sad not to be able to read it. Then I noticed there was a star with text highlighting what looked to be important...the star appeared in the middle of other text...obviously it was important.

So my journey to discovering the text began. My children who I thought were well on the way to reading Japanese promptly told me that Japanese has four alphabets and they were only learning the first! The Hiragana charts seemed to be missing an awful lot of symbols, and knowing the words still didn't tell me what they meant. I tried to use translation web sites, but I needed to be able to copy and past. So I decided it was time to ask Yuichi, my children's teacher. (I must say, it was not easy asking a man if he could read me a crochet pattern..but I was at a desperate state by now) After looking at the text and translating "cut the string..." Yuichi looked at me and said "You need to speak to my wife...she has made huge blanket like this for our bed." JACKPOT! My smiled beamed from ear to ear (so did Yuichi's).

So I met with Kaori. She is an amazing artist, and her work is beautiful. She explained what the star was referencing, and told me that the project was made in wool. She even demonstrated the pattern. Boy I love crafty people. I cant wait to meet with her again.

But back to the Japanese hexagons. Kaori told me that the project was made in wool. In one of the many books I have been reading, they talk about substituting yarns and how different yarns behave differently. I am thinking that that particular pattern may not be suited to cotton yarn, it is quite lacy and the cotton does not have the same body as wool. I could try it on a smaller hook, but I am liking the smaller hexagons and I think I will continue to use the cotton for them. Maybe when I am finished I will try the Japanese hexagons in wool.

On Toni's blog today, I noticed a pinterest picture of a lovely grey hexagon blanket. The same pattern as Lucy's small hexagons that I am making. Ummm, I wonder if each of the children would like a  crochet blanket???? 

Oh, and just before I have to race off to serve a starving family, look at what I HAD to purchase.

A lovely basket to hold all my lovely yarn.

Hope your enjoying your latest project as much as I am,

Lenora XX.