My EXP sweater

February 1, 2026 | Sonia Knits

As revealed this week, my EXP sweater is finished. I’m really happy with how it’s turned out. It took what felt like forever to knit, but then again everything I knit feels like that. I’d love to surprise myself one time, and say, wow that was quick knit, it only took 2 weeks… bwah ha ha, like that’s ever going to happen!

It was the half fisherman’s rib or ‘Shaker Stitch’ as Susanna describes it, that took the time. It looks like brioche, which is cool. I’ve done a little bit of brioche but not a lot, and the Shaker Stitch was actually really soothing to knit, everyone says so. That’s right, I knit this along with some of my quilting friends (turned knitters). I was really happy to have their support, because not everything in the pattern made sense. For a lot of the time, each of my friends were in front (it’s not a race!) so they had encountered the same questions I had; and were able to help. I’m looking forward to wearing my EXP with them for a photo soon.

I made only minor adjustments to the pattern. I lengthened the body and the sleeves. I omitted the decreases in the body, and I didn’t do the 2 extra rows at the raglan seam before kitchenering, I just didn’t think it was worth it for the extra ends to sew in. I also didn’t block aggressively, I didn’t need to, as I had the amount of ease. Except maybe the sleeves could do with a bit more of a block, they’re a little snug.

I’ve cast on for my next garment project, and I’m excited! It’s been in my queue for quite some time, and here we are in February already. I hope I get it done in 2 weeks 🙂

January wrap

January 27, 2026 | Sonia Knits

January has been busy and focussed. I had some extra time off over the holiday period and most of the time was spent at home knitting(!) and socialising.

My first FO for the year were these ribbed socks by Summer Lee. Super simple, and great for Japanese BBQ knitting, which happened quite frequently over the break, much to Damian’s delight. The yarn is by my favourite local self-striping yarn dyer Danni of Halfbaked hand dyed. It might have been a one-of-a-kind colourway and I think it’s super cool. These socks are for me, but I think the next few pairs might be for others. The sock drawer is pretty packed.

I also dabbled in spinning and working on ‘the Queen’ in my break. I would have done more, but the Queen’s hair is going to take a while I think, so I put it aside to knit through my EXP sweater.

I finished knitting my EXP sweater and have sewn in the last ends this evening. It’s currently having a bath, I think it’s going to dry pretty quickly because it got to (or close to) 45 degrees in Melbourne today. I’ll tell you all about the EXP this weekend when hopefully it will be cool enough to take some photos of me wearing it, at least for 5 minutes.

Vintage Flannel

November 23, 2025 | Sonia Knits

Hip hip hooray! My Vintage Flannel sweater by Anna Johanna is finally finished… and I love it 🙂 It turned out just how I wanted it to, but I must admit, it was touch and go when it came to the end. Like ALL of those ends, that I had to sew in

The number of ends is all my own fault of course. When purchasing the yarn for this project, I wanted my contrast colour to be varigated. I couldn’t find any yarn at the Sheep Show that would do this in 5ply. So… I used 3 different colours to create the varigation, which meant I needed to change colours every 3 rounds or so.

But before all of that, the other hurdle I faced was, as I cast off my second sleeve, I realised I had knit my second sleeve on needles that were .25mm larger than the rest of the sweater. True story.

Luckily upon wearing, I can honestly not tell the difference in the sleeve length. So this is our little secret.

With the end of the year approaching, I’m now eyeing off all of my unfinished projects to see what is going to make it into this years completed projects. Spoiler alert, I have cast on a new sweater. There’s also 2 pairs of socks and a blanket to complete. Seems unlikely doesn’t it?!

Geelong fibre Forum 2025

October 6, 2025 | Sonia Knits

The TAFTA Geelong Fibre Forum has been running for around 30 years. A very long time ago, 2007 to be exact I attended my final Fibre Forum workshop until this year. Prior to this I attended the forum for 7 consecutive years. Whilst the order of worshops undertaken are sketchy, the classes themselves have always been wonderful and worthwhile. On top of that, the experience of being at the Fibre Forum has been incredible. Last week I was reminded of that again, being surrounded by so many women (over a hundered, 150? and just a couple of men), it was so enlightening (and weird at the same time).

I have been a subscriber to the TAFTA e-newsletter since the magazine ended (yes, there used to be a magazine!). So when Jo Hamilton’s Crochet Portraiture workshop was announced, I just knew I had to return.

The Fibre Forum is hosted at Geelong Grammar School, whilst the kids are on school holidays. The Dining Hall is just like being at Hogwarts. I lived-in for the whole week, and was served breakfast, lunch and dinner (and morning tea) each day. It was Heaven.

For my workshop, I decided to do a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. I brought along an Ikea bag of yarn in colours that I thought would work for the image I was going to crochet.

For a novice, the technique is very slow going (for the experienced it would also be slow!), with lots of trial and error (learning) along the way. Jo is a fantastic teacher, with great patience. I wish I had gotten more done, but I feel as though I can continue on and complete the portrait on my own. It’s only my first portrait, and it is a bit wonky, as to be expected. Jo has been using this technique for around 20 years and her work is spectacular.

Whilst recovering and coming down from the high that was the week, I’ve picked up my hook and filled in some more areas since Friday.

Whilst working on the portrait, a lot of the time is spent looking and checking to make sure the stitches you’ve put in are correct.

Here’s a photo of my class and some of their creations, click on the first image to make them larger.

Wednesday night was Party Night! The theme this year was: Black and White with a touch of … Now in my memory of the Forum, the dress-up theme was always wild; there have been some super wacky costumes, mostly worn by the former organiser Janet De Boer. So I came dressed as Wednesday… with a touch of severed Thing.

I might have been overdressed, ha ha. I hope to attend again in the future and I hope it’s sooner than 18 years. I’ll be back to my regular schedule of knitting soon. I almost got no knitting done this week!

Ready for Bendigo, kind of

July 10, 2025 | Sonia Knits

My ‘Bendigo Sweater’ for the Richmond Knitters is finished and blocked. It has turned out even better than the first Wool & Honey sweater that I knit six years ago. I love the length of the sleeves and the electric blue colour. The benefit of doing something more than once is, you’ll always do it better the second time, you would hope! There is something I’d like to re-do… but perhaps after the Show when the pressure is off.

As it’s been so cold here in Melbourne (and Bendigo town is always colder) my mind is turning to the possible accessories I can knit to go with my sweater. I don’t normally go all in, with an entire matchy matchy Bendigo ensemble, but it’s really cold right now and I don’t want to be whilst I’m in Bendigo.

I’m hoping to knit a hat, mitts and cowl, that’s do-able within a week right? I’ll report back.

3 Sleeve Island

June 29, 2025 | Sonia Knits

It’s been a few busy weeks. I’ve been away for a romantic lunch and night in Red Hill:

I’ve been yarn shopping(!) I made it to Little Woollie’s yarn store on the way to Red Hill, then went to the Coburg yarn market the following day!

I’ve been sick again 😦 I’ve celebrated birthdays (there’s another one this afternoon)

and I’ve been knitting madly on my Bendigo Sheep Show sweater! I’m now further along since these photos from last weekend, I have half a sleeve to go!

I should have this version of Wool & Honey finished in the next couple of days before blocking and photos next weekend.

Meanwhile this week, the extra yarn from Louie & Lola has arrived for my Fragmentation Cardigan. I have just 2 half sleeves on this to go. It’s going to be very satisfying finishing these 2 sweaters at about the same time. A new sweater cast-on beckons in July.

Playing Chicken

June 7, 2025 | Sonia Knits

This past week I’ve been playing ‘yarn chicken’ with my Fragmentation cardigan.

I started getting concerned whilst knitting on my first sleeve. With the button bands and a second sleeve still to knit, I was getting anxious by how much yarn I had left. So I strategised, I went ahead and knit the button bands, and then the second sleeve to match the (so far) length of the first sleeve… and after all that, I had just 23 grams of yarn left in the grey. Not enough to finish the sleeves in grey.

My options were:

To make long colourful ribbed cuffs with the remaining advent yarn, then not have enough yarn to make the matching hood. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to have colourful cuffs like Stephen West’s sample.

Or… to email the lovely Karina at Louie & Lola yarns (the yarn dyer of the Advent yarn) and hope that she could help. Which is exactly what I did. I’m so relieved to say Karina got back to me right away and offered to do a custom dye for me, so I asked for 2 skeins (to make it worth her while) and I’ll also have enough for the trim in the matching hood.

So whilst I wait for the additional yarn to arrive, I’ve placed the cardigan aside to get cracking on my Bendigo Sweater… I’d been so obsessively knitting my cardigan, I lost sight of the fact that the Bendigo Sheep Show is just 5 weeks away!

So now I’m playing ‘time chicken’ as well, eep!

Last weekend I presented my sister with her mitts, I think she loves them. It was a proud Knitter moment.

It’s a long weekend here and the weather is terrible, so I hope to get lots of knitting done in between socialising.

Intermission

May 25, 2025 | Sonia Knits

It’s been an interesting week. I’ve got a cold, it began as a regular (not too bad, garden-variety cold) and slowly turned into a horrible coughing-green-slime-kind-of-a-cold. At this point I threw in the towel and called my doctor. Aren’t antibiotics wonderful? I try to avoid taking them if I can, I think it’s been years. I am on the mend, but I’m not there yet.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my sisters whose birthday is coming up, asked if I could knit her a pair of fingerless mitts. Wow, I don’t often get requests from family members to knit them anything. It doesn’t take a birthday for me to make for anyone, especially family. So I went to my stash. I gave her some yarn options, from which she made a selection, then I gave her a few more options (based on her first choice) but she still stuck with her original choice. The yarn is deep stash, Colinette Jitterbug. Gosh, it’s such a good yarn which sadly has been discontinued for many years now. The colourway is Forest.

I’m knitting up a pair of Penny Gloves by Petite Knit. It is a super simple pattern, but it fits well. There is only one size in the pattern, so I hope it fits my sister as well as they fit me. I should have time to finish the second mitt and give them a good soak and block in time for next weekend.

I’ve also finished plying the singles (Cat & Sparrow, 100% merino) that have been on my wheel for an embarrassingly long time. I look forward to winding it off and giving it a bath to measure the yarn weight and meterage. I have a loose idea of a Sophie shawl by Petite Knit but we’ll see.

May is for catching up

May 18, 2025 | Sonia Knits

My knitting progress has felt slow this month, probably because there has been much less time to knit. Because of this, and the fact that I have 2 sweater projects already on the needles, I’ve decided not to cast on a new sweater this month, but to try to ‘catch-up’ instead. I haven’t touched my Wool & Honey sweater, but I’ve made good progress on my Fragmentation Cardigan by Stephen West.

I’m on the ribbing now, then the sleeves, then the button bands, then the matching hood… still so much more to do. I have really enjoyed knitting this though. The modular aspect is so fun. Interestingly, looking ahead to the sleeves, the pattern calls for it to be in stocking stitch. But I think I’m going to do, what a few other knitters on Ravelry have done, and do the sleeves in garter stitch to match the rest of the garment. It’s weird that Stephen West made them in stocking stitch, it kind of bloats the top of the sleeve.

This month we took a quick trip to Kyneton, we haven’t been in more than a year. We’d been missing our favourite French rural restaurant, and there was a yarn show the following day. Of course this weekend was orchestrated by me.

Danni of Half-baked Hand dyed was at the market, and I visited her first! I might have gone a bit bananas at her stall. She does great self-striping sock yarn, and I’ve grown quite fond of 8ply socks, so I purchased both 4 & 8ply gobstopper balls.

I’ve also done a little spinning, and cast-on some DK socks since last time. I just need to ply up this gorgeous pink fibre from Cat & Sparrow, perhaps tonight. The sock yarn is also by Danni, in her special Bendigo Show colourway, Hot Jam Donuts! I’m holding a strand of fluff in the white and red sections, for some extra coziness. Only 2 months to Bendigo, squee!