Hannah Knits Stuff

Done. Finally.

2012-01-31T12:37:00.000Z

They have been nearly 3 years in the making, but I’ve finally done it, the alpaca socks are done, and it’s a good job too because all of a sudden it is fffreezing here. These socks are completely indoor socks and have been doing a wonderful job keeping my feet toasty while I sit on the sofa and knit. Also they are so soft and lovely, I can highly recommend the Artesano Inca Cloud, in fact I could quite happily just wrap myself up in the stuff and wait for this cold snap to pass.

I’m still having a lovely time getting to know my spinning wheel. Despite having a couple of frustrating moments, I have completed my first bobbin and am now about halfway into my second. The fibre is a British Breeds blend I got from Fondant Fibre a couple of weeks ago, split end to end to make a (hopefully) striping 2 ply. With any luck it should be done by the end of the week, it certainly looks like having a wheel will be good for production!

Splurge

2012-01-26T14:57:00.000Z

My sooper dooper treat to myself arrived yesterday, via the very nice man next door (thank you Don!) Here is what was in the box

Can you tell what it is yet? Stu took pity on me, grabbed his tool box and started assembling it for me. He’s a good boy.

The strange shadow along the bottom is probably cat ears!

And here she is all finished.

My very own Ashford Kiwi spinning wheel! Purchased from Wingham Woolwork, who very kindly included a £15 voucher for fibre, which I will very much enjoy spending. I didn’t have much chance to try it out last night, but I think we are going to be very good friends. I was a bit worried that the transition from spindle to wheel would be very difficult, but the only real problem I have been having is in getting the right amount of twist in to the yarn and that really will just be a matter of practice..... and I intend to get a lot of practice.

Goodness gracious....

2012-01-22T11:30:00.000Z

....great balls of fibre! Yep, three little balls of singles can only mean one thing, it’s plying time. These were originally this

which I spun up in the hope of getting a yarn which phased from green to purple to blue. Unfortunately upon winding them into a plying ball one strand had completely run out before the third had even got to green. My plan is to cable ply the remaining green from the leftovers and add it later so all is not lost.

Things

2012-01-21T11:30:00.000Z

Lots more things for me in the post over the last few days.

First, 3 braids of fibre from Fondant Fibre, The pink and blue and the brown and pink are both cheviot and the green and pink is a British breeds blend. I’m currently formulating a plan for spinning these to show off the colours nicely. I may spin one of them up using one of my super new spindles....

..made from dowels and toy wheels I received a few days ago, these little spindles are actually lovely spinners. I do love my fancy spindles, but now that we are really trying to save as much money as we can these little ones are as cheap as chips and perfectly good.

That being said, I have allowed myself one last splurge and the postman should be arriving with the spoils any day now.... I can’t wait to share what it is, but I’ll wait until it is here.

Also through the door was the latest issue of Burda Style. Typically it has a section on maternity wear, there is some nice stuff there but with only 10 weeks left to go it doesn’t seem worth sewing anything up. I guess I’ll tuck it away in case there is a next time. I guess I should probably browse through all of my old issues to see if there are any nice baby patterns. That sounds like a nice job for Sunday afternoon, with a cup of tea and some chocolate. Mmmmm.

Here it is!

2012-01-20T20:45:00.005Z

Firstly, panic over, the first of the spiral socks has been found and the second is well on its way to being finished. They look a pretty pair don’t they? Incidentally, the pattern is from Easy Knitted Socks by Jeanette Trotman. My copy appears to have been to hell and back, it’s all crinkly and horrible and the entire back half appears to be stuck together. Clearly during all the times I’ve been unable to find this book it has been off having adventures.

I finally got sewing last night, which was a relief as I have been itching to get going for a while. One thing after another held me back. First there was nowhere to put the machine, then I couldn’t find any thread, then my ruler was missing and then I couldn’t find any pins. Last night it all came together and I made this

It’s a lovely patchwork play mat, made by roughly following this tutorial. I love it! I wasn't convinced it would end up being anything like square, but it is. Even my topstitching looks fairly straight, I'm rather proud of myself.

My endless socks

2012-01-17T13:42:00.001Z

I’ve had a bit of a gear change with my knitting, I finished the main body of the baby cardi I’ve been making and then realised that I needed DPNs for the sleeves. Typically the only set I have in the right size have been languishing in the second of a pair of socks that I have been knitting since May 2009. Obviously I could use magic loop for the sleeves, but I much much prefer DPNs and this seems like a golden opportunity to actually finish these flipping socks. Given that I knew where the pattern was (No. 1 reason for the longevity of this project is that the pattern goes missing with alarming regularity) and that I had actually kept track of what row I was on using my phone (sock has been ripped back so many times due to having no clue where I got to) this seems like too good a chance to miss. Wish me luck, finishing these things has been an uphill struggle for nearly 3 years, maybe I can actually do it this time. Oh and the first sock is...somewhere. I'd probably best find that to give me half a chance of making a matching pair!

Sock no.1 - currently MIA

My sis rocks!

2012-01-12T10:50:00.001Z

My sis Jess and me - she's the giant!

I’ll start today by bragging a bit about my little sister, of whom I am very, very proud. She is currently in her last term studying live event technology at university and has just found out that she has got a place working at the International Broadcast Centre at the London Olympics. Not a bad start given that she will have barely graduated, we are really excited for her. This also means that, for a while at least, she will be back in the South East being Auntie Jess. I can’t wait!

In preparation for the baby arriving, I have an absolute boatload of sewing projects I want to start. Here is a big pile of fabric bits I got through the post from Fabric Rehab last week:

A free cat with every bundle!

Some of the bits are going to be a quilted play mat, some will be little project bags for me and some will form the backing for a fleece blankie. I’m really excited to get started. These should be quick little projects and I do like a bit of instant gratification, plus I get to feel like I am really starting to get things together for the baby.

Catch up

2012-01-10T22:34:00.000Z

Ok, so quick catch up time, let’s see how much I can abbreviate this!

1: House bought, moved into and largely redecorated. Hurrah!

2: Me. FAAAAT, but healthy.

3. Baby. Growing, kicking and...... female (according to the nice sonographer). We are very happy about this.

4: Knitting. Currently working on cute tiny baby cardi

5. Spinning. I have 2 projects very close to the plying stage which I hope to be able to share soon, as well as the usual ongoing projects which just goooo oooon! I have been on a bit of a fibre splurge just recently. A lot of undyed BFL which just looks kind of cream and these two lovely braids from FeltStudio. I would buy all her stuff if I could.

Sparkly BFL

Wensleydale

So, there’s a quick catch up. It’s a busy exciting time for us at the mo and even though I don’t have much time I really hope that I can manage to share a bit more of it here. It feels like I should be documenting things more, even if just for me to look back on.

Shalom

2011-10-06T15:17:00.001+01:00

Having found my camera SD card, which inevitably was down the back of the sofa, I’ve finally managed to take some pictures of my Shalom.

I’m still beavering away on the yoke because, despite Autumn quite clearly arriving a few weeks ago we have been in the middle of a mysterious heat wave which is only just waning. I hate to knit when it’s hot so I’ve been averaging about ¼ of a row per day for the last week or so. Luckily it is starting to cool now, because at that rate I’d have given birth by the time this maternity cardigan is done.

Also on my memory card, much to my surprise were a whole host of photos from the summer, some photos of fibre I bought ages ago and forgot to blog about (I’ll catch up on that tomorrow) and also this:

Which on closer inspection appears a strawberry shaped like a witches nose. The strangest things amuse me.

Latest WIP

2011-09-27T17:46:00.000+01:00

For the last 13 weeks I’ve been working on a super secret project, which hasn’t really left me much energy for anything else. Here’s a pic of my progress so far:

Estimated date of completion is 29^th March 2012. That’s right, all being well I’m going to be a mummy! To be honest it is really only just sinking in, it’s only been since the scan last week that I’ve actually been able to get excited about it, plus I’ve been feeling rather awful for weeks now which kind of takes the shine off. Anyway so now I can tell people, it all seems a bit more real.

So, while I can see lots of baby knitting in my future the first thing I cast on was for myself. A lovely plum coloured Shalom which will be just perfect as I get larger over the coming months. Pics to follow when I remember where I put my camera memory card. It’s been pretty simple so far, even though the going has been quite slow. I think that might have something to do with the fact that I fall asleep every time I sit down for more than 5 minutes!

....er, remember me?!

2011-09-07T12:47:00.000+01:00

My dining room to be!

Exciting things have been afoot in our little household recently, but as none of it has really been craft related I have been a bit silent in the blog department. Our plan after we got married was to knuckle down and save every penny, so that we could afford the deposit on our own house. After we got back from our honeymoon and opened all of our gifts we were absolutely astonished by the amount of contributions we received for our house fund. Our generous friends and family gave us such a wonderful boost and even though we have still been saving unbelievably hard, we were quickly realistically able to start looking for a house. Since then most of our spare time has been spend looking for houses on the internet, looking round actual real life houses and having long, long discussions about how much renovation and repair we were willing to undertake. Luckily we’ve not been able to afford to go out anywhere for a while so we’ve had plenty of time for all this! However we have finally found somewhere we like and had our offer accepted so the actual process of buying the place has begun. It needs a fair amount of updating (see groovy carpet in the pic above), but no major renovation is necessary and I can’t wait to get going.

As an aside, here in South East England it’s starting to get a wee bit chilly and it feels a bit like Autumn is on the way. This is the time of year when I start to regularly settle down for an evening’s knitting every day, so hopefully I’ll have some projects to share very soon.

Invisible tea

2011-07-20T23:14:00.002+01:00

I wrote a post all about how my car knocked a cup of tea all over the sock I'm knitting. When I went to take a photo the sock had dried and no trace of the team was visible. Good news for the sock, not so great for the post! Anyways, here's a nice photo of the cat responsible. Good job she's adorable.

Oops more fibre

2011-07-18T10:18:00.000+01:00

Because I am slowly working through my fibre stash, I thought I could do worse than to add a little more to it. With a wealth of lovely stuff available on Etsy it was a difficult task to choose what I wanted, but in the end I was unable to resist checking out with these bits from Hilltopcloud.

These are lovely batts with merino, mohair and silk. I love that they are subtle and dark with occasional flashes of purple, I’m really looking forward to these being yarn. I’m so often drawn to bright flashy colours which can limit what I’d realistically knit with them, but this will be really versatile I think.

These are little bits of roving with Shetland, merino and tussah silk. I'm having a bit of a blue thing at the moment, which is quite odd for me, so this is perfect. I’m anticipating that I will have an empty spindle very shortly, so now I just have to decide which of these fibres I spin up first.

New kit

2011-07-06T21:29:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I included a quick pic of some the Yummy Yarns fibre that didn’t get to come on honeymoon with me, although it is clear from the photo that I have now started to spin it up. I was going to save it for a while, but when I got home from my holiday this lovely IST spindle I ordered a while back was waiting for me. The next fibre on my list for spinning was an alpaca silk blend, but I only had to spin for a minute to realise that that was going to require a heavier spindle so I swapped to the merino bamboo instead. I’m enjoying spinning with the spindle, it’s so delicate and refined and it spins for ages and the fibre is spinning up nicely too.

The other fibre that I did take away with me was a small portion of the merino silk top that I got from Shunklies a wee while back (first blogged here). I got most of this spun up on holiday and finished it up quickly once we were home and now I have this lovely colourful skein of 4-ply. It is 68m long and weighs 23g. I was aiming this to be fairly stripy and it sort of is. Each section is certainly mostly one colour and I think that the little variations make it interesting. I’m still rather amazed each time I finish a new skein that I have produced actual yarn that I can actually knit with, once I’ve decided what I want to make that is.

Back again so soon

2011-07-05T22:45:00.001+01:00

Here I am, Day 2 of trying to be a better blogger and catch up with everything. Yesterday I finished with my wedding and the shrug that wasn't, so a good place to pick up would be the honeymoon. Obviously an important consideration before we went away was which projects I would pack. Because I was no longer tied to the shrug I thought I'd enjoy some sock knitting, so I packed my plain simple socks which I'm knitting out of some of the first yarn I dyed. I finished the first sock a while back, but aside from casting on I hadn't worked on the second sock at all. I'm now ready to turn the heel on that sock thanks indeed to the near apocalyptic levels of rainfall which will forever define my honeymoon! In all honesty neither of us were at all upset about the weather, to us the honeymoon was an opportunity to drop off the grid, spend some time alone and know that when we woke up in the morning we were free to do, or not do whatever we liked. It was bliss.

The weather also afforded me plenty of time for spinning too. I'd packed an ongoing project, which is now finished and will get it's own post later in the week, and as a little treat I'd bought myself some new fibre from Yummy Yarns on Etsy.

Rather nice merino soybean top

Pretty batts full of lots of lovely stuff

I can highly recommend her shop, the fibre is lovely and I received a wonderful welcome into her group on Ravelry. After some deliberation I decided to pack the batts to take away with me. So far I've almost finished spinning up the first one, from one side of the batt to the other so i have three very wide stripes. Because I could only really fit half of the batt on my spindle this resulted in a bit of jiggerry pokery, winding and rewinding so that I can join the right end of the second spindleful to the first spindleful, I really should think about these things ahead of time. When I start the second batt I shall be starting from the middle so that when I wind off it will be the right end on the outside. My problem solving skills know no bounds!

Apologies

2011-07-04T14:40:00.002+01:00

I have been a downright sucky blogger of late, I’ve really got out of the swing of things and it really is time to kick myself into touch. I even have 2 FOs, an event which would normally have me firing up blogger with gusto, but I just haven’t got round to it. I’ve also started new projects, purchased new things and made plans to get back behind the sewing machine (once I’ve moved the pile of socks that’s in the way) so I have plenty of stuff to write about. Rather than doing a massive info dump and running out of steam again I think I’ll cover one thing at a time and ease myself back in.

So, first things first.....the wedding shrug, whatever happened to that? Well, anyone who has clicked the link to my wedding website (that’s the button in the sidebar, helpfully declaring that I have been married for 31 days) will notice that it is absent from the photographs. This is not because I didn’t finish it, I did. I finished knitting it on the afternoon before the wedding and duly sewed it all up right away. I tried it on, it seemed to fit and then looked in the mirror and horror of horrors I just didn’t like it very much! This is one of those things which worries me most in knitting and luckily doesn’t happen too often. We spend many hours making these things and then at the end they are just.. meh, it’s disappointing. However, because I was far too busy worrying about other things this disappointment didn’t last very long at all. Plus the day of my wedding was absolutely boiling, had I really liked the shrug I would have spent the whole day trying to find an excuse to wear it in weather when I really would have had no business wearing a shrug at all. I guess everything happens for a reason.

I'm back!

2011-06-16T11:48:00.001+01:00

Just a quickie today, obviously I’ve been incredibly busy over the last few weeks but now I’m all married and back from honeymoon I can start getting on top of this blog. But for today I’ll leave you with a few pics from my wedding. It was an absolutely glorious day and everything went so smoothly, it was marvellous!

Yep, my bouquet is bound with Rowan Big Wool!

Eeek!

2011-05-27T13:54:00.000+01:00

I had no photo for today, so here's a sleepy Billie for you.

Well, whaddya know, this time next week I'll be just an hour away from getting married! For this reason I haven't really had much time to drop by. Obviously once the wedding is over I'll have loads of photos and things to share, plus life will get back to normal again. Today is my final day at work before the wedding, I'll be so busy next week it seemed silly to work. My colleagues have been so lovely, all asking questions about the wedding and giving me great support. Today they gave me a lovely card, a picture frame for my desk and a £50 voucher. I'm so luckily to work somewhere where people are so kind.

Tonight is our rehearsal, Sunday is the stag and hen nights, I have the hairdresser on Tuesday and we need to decorate the church on Thursday and in between we will be working hard on all the million and one other things that have to be done. Wish me luck!

Spinning......thursday?

2011-05-19T21:53:00.002+01:00

This week's spinning round up is a day later than usual due to a bit of a technical hitch with the finishing of my latest handspun. I could have just posted yesterday anyway, but it was so close to being finished and I really wanted to have an FO to share so please forgive my tardiness.

I finished spinning up the last of my purple batts on Tuesday night but left it til last night to wind off into a skein. I didn't start until quite late because I spent the evening at the church where I'm getting married planning the decorations, but once I got going it didn't take me long - even with the usual feline 'supervision'

Before the dunking

Next step was to give the yarn a bath, I plopped it in some hot water, wandered off for a few minutes and came back to find that the water had turned to ribena! Slight colour seepage was not the word. A bit of dithering later and I sprayed the skein with citric acid and water and stuck it in the microwave for a couple of minutes to try and set the dye. It seems more colourfast now but I'm a bit disappointed with the blue spots that have developed where the purple has seeped in to the white. I'm sure it will be fine though. The yarn is all smooshy and bobbly and goes nicely with the pink I finished last week and that's all I was hoping for. I guess now I finally get to knit something with my very own handspun - how exciting!

After dunking, the blue bits aren't too obvious here.

Just dropping by

2011-05-17T13:43:00.000+01:00

Yet again I’ve been busy, busy, busy and have had little time for blogging. This is a real shame, but with the wedding now 17 days away I can think of little else. Not that there is too much to do now, my floral arrangements are now in the hands of my good friend Gayle at Bloomingayles, the venue is all organised, everyone has outfits and I’ve been practicing in my shoes. All that is really left is for me to finish my wedding shrug, which is now two long rectangles waiting for a third to be complete. I’m still not terribly inspired by the knitting of this pattern, but I am getting there slowly.

So that’s it, boring eh? I have however managed to do a very small amount of spinning – possibly I may even have an FO for you tomorrow and I have a new spindle too. So now I’ve dropped by to tell you how much more interesting tomorrow’s post will be I shall pop off again, ta ta!.

Spinning Wednesday

2011-05-11T11:36:00.000+01:00

For the second week in a row I have an FO for you. Quite frankly it’s about time because I feel like I have been plying this for months. So here we are, 345m and 46g of 2ply merino tencel from FeltStudioUk.

This has turned out really lovely, smooth and shiny and the colours look great. This was only half the top and I will start spinning the second lot soon, but because I like a bit of variety I started spinning this instead

This is some top merino silk I got from Shunklies a little while back. I decided to make this a bit stripy and found that if I split the top in a certain place I had two matching lengths with just a bit leftover that didn’t match anything. I’ve therefore split that bit into four skinny strips and am spinning that separately, the idea being that I’ll have a little mini skein with much shorter stripes which I can use to accent the longer striping main skein. Well that’s the plan anyway, who knows how it will actually turn out!

Dyeing to be yarn

2011-05-10T19:28:00.001+01:00

A few months ago I bought 400g of undyed merino fibre to try my hand at dyeing. It took me a while to be brave enough to actually try it but I have finally taken the plunge. I’m not sure why I was so apprehensive, I had visions of coming out with a horrible felty mess but I did a bit of reading up to see how to avoid that and still I put it off. Now I’ve finally got on and done it I think my biggest worry is that I’ve dyed something that looks perfectly fine, but it is only after it is spun and plied and knitted I’ll be able to truly tell if I did a good dye job. Obviously the same is true with dying yarn, but without the extra (rather time consuming) step in there. I guess this is something that will come with practice and I probably need the odd disaster to help me learn. However, here is how dyed my fibre.

I’ll keep you posted with the progress of the yarn, so that if it turns out to be really fugly you can disregard any dyeing advice I may have given!

Birthday, spinning, FO!

2011-05-04T22:59:00.000+01:00

Today is Wednesday, spinning update day and I actually have a FO to share - plus it's my birthday so I'm having a great day. I took today off work and planned to spend it pottering around making bits and bobs and maybe doing some shopping until Stu got home from work. Imagine my surprise when he woke me up with breakfast in bed this morning after secretly getting the day off work himself. He even got up at the normal time and went off to the supermarket to get breakfast bits and flowers and make it all extra surprising. I think he may be a keeper!

So, not much time for making stuff after all, but I did get to do some shopping so it doesn't matter. I'm currently working on this

This is from the first of the purple karmic delight batts which I am now working on because I finished up with the pink ones - tada!

She was sitting still, I can't help myself!

I love how this ended up, it's really rough and ready and a bit knobbly but it is soft and pretty and I'm really proud of myself. The skein is 30grams and 98m long. I'm hoping that the purple will spin up just as quickly so I can make something nice and stripy with them. I'm thinking maybe a nice slouchy hat?

Boredom

2011-05-03T15:23:00.001+01:00

With a month to go until my wedding I was forced to assess my progress on my wedding shrug and had to admit that progress had been smidge slow. Even with the wedding looming I was finding it difficult to motivate myself to knit more endless rows of stockinette. So I decided to put a reward system in place. For each 'pattern repeat' completed (i.e 23 rows stockinette, 3 short rows) I was allowed a short break to spin in. This may have been effective had this not happened just before I finished my first repeat.

2 cats, 2 immobilised people!

Clearly I was not going anywhere, so I just kept on knitting and have finally finished the main body of the shrug.

I made a circle!

Now I just have to do the back pieces, the pattern has them half lace and half stockinette but as soon as I decided to knit this I knew that would bug me and would have to do all lace or all stockinette. With time shortening I've plumped for the stockinette - boring but at least I can just knit and knit with no need for concentration so hopefully it'll be done in no time.

Wednesdays are for spinning

2011-04-27T18:21:00.000+01:00

Once again it’s time for a weekly spinning catch up. Due to the glorious sunshine we have been having we have spent most of our time enjoying the weather with friends and family so I haven’t really done much of anything. However the forecast for this weekend looks incredibly dreary and wet so hopefully I should have some time to create something worth blogging about. This week I have mainly concentrated on two projects, the first of which is the sparkly BFL which is now ¾ spun.

The plying ball is now looking nice and big and I’ve just started work on the last little bit. You can't quite see but I have put quite a substantial stop on the top of the spindle, the whorl of this particular spindle is particularly slippery and even with a one strand stop the leader still slips once the cop grows a bit. I’m hoping that using three strands will do the trick. I’m thinking I may have to get Stu to cut a notch in it once I’m done with this batch, I was hoping to avoid it but I think it will make things a lot easier.

My second project is a new one, which is exciting! I got a new spindle, another Enid Ashcroft from this eBay store.

Of course I had to start a project on it immediately, just to check it spins nicely so I dived into my little fibre stash and decided to try the little batts I got from KarmicDelight on Etsy recently. I’d yet to try spinning a batt so I felt quite intrepid.

All in all it’s going quite well, I’ve spun the first batt and have just started the second. I plan to spin each of the pink batts separately and then ply them all together to make a 3-ply and then follow suit with the purple batts. Because the batts are a total mixture of fibres and I guess because I’m not used to batts, my spinning is less consistent than it has been. This is actually really good for me as I slowly learn to embrace the slub! I’m hoping that this will become a slightly textured yarn with a bit of personality – at this rate I think I should actually find out quite soon – watch this space. Oh, and the little Easter egg? I was looking for little balls to wind plying balls around but all I could find was eggs, they do the same job though.

Time off

2011-04-21T23:13:00.000+01:00

With a most fortuitous conjunction of Easter, a certain royal wedding and a little bit of annual leave I will be working for only two days until 5^th May – hoorah! I don’t have many plans, but it certainly gives me loads of time to spend knitting in the garden maybe I’ll even take my knitting to the beach. Tomorrow I’m planning on having a barbecue for all my siblings, both actual and siblings in-law to be, which I’m really looking forward to. With the wedding so close it seemed like a really great idea to get them all together, particularly as I think it will be really good fun too. I must remember not to sit and knit my wedding shrug while to barbecue is going though, I don’t need to be going down the aisle smelling of sausages!

Other than that I am going to make the most of being away from here....

And enjoy a bit of sunshine.

Spinning Wednesday

2011-04-20T19:42:00.001+01:00

Just a quick post today as I have done next to no spinning this week. So without further ado.....

I'm well along on my third spindle full of the sparkly BFL. After making a plying ball out of the first and second spindle full I've decided to just keep adding to that ball until all the fibre is gone and ply it all in one go. I did test ply a little bit of it and was really pleased with the results.

It's nice and soft and ever so slightly sparkly (believe it or not!)I'm really looking forward to having it all done.

I've also started spinning the merino/bamboo/soybean I got a couple of weeks back. I've not done much but it is spinning nicely, it makes a strange sort of sound when I draft it a bit like paper tearing but very quiet. It's interesting, but not off putting. I've split the top into four and I'll be making 4-ply with it.

Well that's it folks, next week I should have a new spindle and therefore a new project on the go.

In potentia. Pt 1

2011-04-15T17:05:00.002+01:00

The last few days I have been knitting and spinning as usual on several things at once, a few rows of my shrug here, a few rows of my sock there, 5 minutes spinning this, 10 minutes plying that and no real exciting progress to show on any of it. In addition the weather has become rather gloomy so I can’t fill up this post with lovely sunshiney scenes. So far, so dull, I wouldn’t blame you if you just stopped reading now!

So, for anyone still reading I thought I’d take a little look in my stash, pick out a couple of my favourites and lay out my plans for them. This seems like something I can fall back on every now and again when I run out of blog fodder, because I do actually have a plan for pretty much everything in my stash.

Today I’ve picked two yarns, both of which I’ve had for a long time and have been destined to be a few things between them. I’m pretty settled on what I want to do with them now so maybe they’ll actually get the chance to be knitted soon.

This is Regia Color 4-ply in Papillon which I've had 2 balls of since Jan 2009. I remember buying it shortly after I started making my Flutterby socks thinking it would be a lovely yarn to use if I ever decided to knit that pattern again. I’m sure I will knit it again because I really like it, but with so many sock patterns out there I think it will be quite some time before I get round to it, so I’ve decided that this will be the perfect yarn to try out the Skew pattern from Knitty. I’ve loved this pattern since the day I first saw it and I love that it is not your usual sock pattern.

My second pick today is some Felted Tweed which I bought 7 balls of years and years ago to make Celtic (Rav link) from Rowan 40 I still quite like this cardigan, but years have gone by and I’ve never got round to starting it and I don’t think I ever will. When I saw Olivia in Kim Hargreaves Thrown Together I immediately realised that this would be a much better use of my Felted Tweed. Clearly I haven’t got round to casting on for that yet either, but I will. One day.

Spinning Wednesday

2011-04-13T09:00:00.002+01:00

Now I’m finally getting around to actually doing some knitting I’ve decided to just dedicate Wednesday’s to talking about my spinning. Because I have so many projects on the go I very rarely actually finish anything so I think just one weekly update is quite enough.

So what’s been spinning this week? Mostly I’ve been concentrating on a second spindle full of the sparkly BFL from FeltStudio UK. I could see the end of the section of fibre coming closer and close and with 2 staple lengths left to go – disaster! The piece of yarn that I use as a stopper when the spindle has no notch (tutorial here if anyone’s interested) snapped and I discovered that the edge of this spindle has no grab whatsoever and I could not get spinning at all. I’m sure someone more experienced knows what to do for the best here, but because I’m planning on chain plying this I’m just going to wind it off as if it were finished and ply it as it is. I’ve got another 50g of this to spin so I’ll add the last little bit to that and try to stop twitching every time I think about deliberately making one skein bigger than the other. Yes, I have issues (don’t even ask me about people who purposefully wear odd socks!)

Other than that, I am making slow progress plying the first 50g of the merino tencel from FeltStudioUK. It turns out that plying bores me so I have to do it in small batches. I’m thinking that chain plying will go faster for me because it’s a little bit more involved. I’ve started chain plying this black/white/grey merino but I’m going slowly because my toilet roll middle got all squished and it’s making things a little difficult. I think I may have to pinch the toilet roll holder from the bathroom and see if that helps a little.

And, finally, because I just can’t keep myself away from Etsy I now have some new batts to spin. Look how pretty they are.

These are from Karmicdelight found here. They are lovely little batts, each around 0.5oz with loads of interesting stuff in there. Alison is an absolute pleasure to buy from and showed a genuine interest in what I was planning to do with her batts. I can’t recommend her highly enough.

Lucky old me

2011-04-12T20:28:00.001+01:00

Stu and I both took yesterday off work and had a lovely long weekend, spent mostly outside and it had been glorious. Apart from a brief shower of rain yesterday the weather has been unseasonably sunny and warm and we very much took advantage of it. On Friday Stu picked me up from work and we went fishing. Well Stu went fishing and I sat and knitted next to a lake.

On Saturday we behaved like good British people and went to some garden centres. We got lots of flowers and six different types of strawberry plants and I got myself a lovely pink knitting lounger so I don’t have to sit on the steps next to the tumble dryer any more!

Sunday saw us risk causing a break in the good weather by buying a barbecue, but we didn’t actually use it so the sunshine continued unabated. I took advantage of this by knitting while Stu worked...better than television.

Yesterday, while everyone else worked we went and hand delivered a load of wedding invitations before taking a little trip to Ikea and then coming home and doing some knitting. I decided to take a break from the wedding shrug and finished off the first of my hand dyed socks.

Once that was done and ends sewn in I immediately cast on for the second one (if I don’t it will never get done) before putting it aside and casting on again for the second of my first ever toe up socks. As I have documented recently all was going swimmingly with this sock the first time I started it until I noticed that I had been knitting the lace pattern all the way round, including on the bottom of the foot. I’ve now knitted the toe again – great practice for short rows – and now all I need to do is find my fifth DPN and I’ll be off and running again.....about time too.

Phones, smarter than me.

2011-04-07T17:43:00.000+01:00

After enjoying a nice night knitting away on my wedding shrug on Tuesday, I sat down last night to do the same again. Assembling all my bits and bobs I quickly spotted a flaw in my plan. I don’t need much, just the project, both needles, my notebook which has a simple breakdown of the bit of pattern I’m on plus a tally of how many pattern repeats I’ve done and my phone which has the row count on it. Except I managed to leave my phone on my desk at work last night. Marvellous. Smart phones are a super idea, so many things you can do with them .....and so many things you have to do without if you leave it somewhere. Mine also has my bus ticket on it. Extra marvellous. Luckily it is lovely and sunny here at the moment so a 50 minute walk to work this afternoon wasn’t actually all that bad.

Compare this to a picture of the same view in November. Slightly different eh? Because the weather is so nice I headed out into the garden with my sock this morning. I found myself a nice sunny perch next to the old tumble dryer and knit away whilst dreaming of sunloungers and thinking that maybe it’s time we took that old tumble dryer to the dump!

Knitstalgia?

2011-04-06T08:49:00.002+01:00

If it seems like I haven’t really been knitting much lately then you are not at all mistaken. I don’t really feel bad about this, I’ve always had phases where I prefer one craft to another and spinning is all shiny and new to me so it’s not surprising that I’ve been favouring it. But I kind of miss knitting and feel like I need to set aside some time for it. Spinning is a little more physical than knitting, requiring me to either sit up straight or stand (I prefer to ply standing) whereas I can knit curled up in a ball with very little movement whatsoever. In fact it’s not even strictly necessary for me to have my eyes open! Yesterday’s weather was grey and miserable after a lovely sunny weekend so a night of the sofa with my knitting cheered me up no end. Despite really wanting to work on my lovely, bright, cheerful hand dyed socks (blogged here), the first of which I have left so tantalisingly close to being finished, I did the right thing and spent all evening working on my wedding shrug.

This is now around 20% finished with 58 days to go to the wedding so I think I will have to pencil in a few more evenings to work on it exclusively. At least if I focus on worrying about getting my shrug done on time it might stop me panicking about the wedding itself. How’s that for a diversionary tactic eh?

Green

2011-04-05T18:11:00.001+01:00

Before Blog Week started I figured that with a week off from talking about my current projects that I would have loads to share once normal service resumed. This was always going to be wishful thinking, but that is my favourite kind of thinking. Due to my seriously irritationg, but all emcompassing need to be working on all the things at once I've made baby steps of progress on everything, but finished nothing. Except for this:

It's the pink sparkly yarn which I proclaimed was nearly finished here back in february. This was not entirely a lie, I did in fact finish plying the yarn, I skeined it and washed it and became the very proud owner of some incredibly squiggly yarn. I think to describe it as a wee bit overplied would demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of the word 'wee', so another go around the spindle was deemed necessary. Obviously I had to wait a couple of weeks, just to make sure it wasn't going to magically unply itself a bit, but eventually I just got on and did it myself. Even now this yarn is still very tightly plied, but I don't have the heart to stick it back on the spindle a third time so it will have to do. There is just over 100m there, not sure on the weight yet.

Other than that, I have just begun to ply the first half of the merino tencel. I'm plying this a lot more loosely than the pink stuff and have no doubt that this will therefore be totally underplied. Hopefully by lowering my expectations this will turn out better than I hope!

And because I don't have enough on the go I have also started spinning some new fibre I got from World of Wool last week. It's an intriguing blend of merini bamboo and soybean, which I have to say looked way more purple on my screen when I ordered it, but apparently the world wants me to spin green yarn and who am I to argue.

So what have we learned?

2011-04-04T12:46:00.001+01:00

Having enjoyed Blog Week as much as I did, I thought I’d stretch it out bit a wee bit longer by doing a bit of a debrief now that its over. So what have I learnt from Blog Week?

That I like people reading my blog. Until now I mostly assumed that I was really talking to myself, my sister and the odd friend dropping by. Knowing that actual people will be reading made me think a bit more about what I was writing ( I think certainly rambled a bit less.)
That having topics to write about was really good. I enjoy my blog, but when I’m busy and don’t have much time for knitting etc I feel like I don’t have much to blog about. Times like these would be perfect to have a topic unconnected to my current projects.
Being given topics was really helpful and one I really liked was the one about where old knits are now. I think I’m going to run with that one and try and pick an old project every month to follow up on. It’s all well and good showing off shiny new knits but if it fell apart two months later or turns out to be completely unwearable I think that is worth mentioning.
Reading other peoples blogs has been great, there are a few I’ve read regularly before but I have discovered loads more. Lunch breaks will never be long enough for all the blogs I want to read now!
That it’s a miracle that any colourwork is ever knitted. So many people wrote about it being the skill that they aspire to that anyone who is actually doing it now looks even more fancy.
That cats wearing clothes is a total winner!
All in all I’ve just reaffirmed my knowledge that knitters and crocheters are an interesting bunch. Loads of us all talking about the same things for a week has been fascinating. Thanks all!

Your knitting and crochet time

2011-04-03T20:24:00.000+01:00

Write about your typical crafting time. When is it that you are likely to craft – alone or in more social environments, when watching TV or whilst taking bus journeys? What items do you like to surround yourself with whilst you twirl your hook like a majorettes baton or work those needles like a skilled set of samurai swords? Do you always have snacks to hand or are you a strictly ‘no crumbs near my yarn’ kind of knitter?

After a full week of blogging, a complete first for me, I find myself a little stumped at the final hurdle. I've really, really enjoyed blog week but today I just don't have anything interesting to say - clearly I've used up all my inspiration for one week. I'll give it a try though.

The view from my usual knitting spot.

Essentially though I don't have a typical crafting time, no particular rituals or stipulations. If I'm in my house with nothing else to do with my hands, I will fill them with knitting or a spindle or maybe even some cross stitch. If I'm watching something on TV which requires a little concentration then I'll make sure I work on something simple, but other than that I just pick up what I feel like when I feel like it. I'm sure there is probably some deep subconscious reason why I choose a certain project at any given moment but I sure as heck don't know what it is. Maybe I'll give it some thought, it could make for an interesting study....or not!

So that's it, I've managed to end my blog week on a total low. Hopefully there are lots of much better posts out there written by all of the other blog week participants. I've come across some really wonderful blogs this week which I know I'll be keeping up with in the future and I hope I can keep this blog interesting enough that a few people come back too.

Something to aspire to

2011-04-02T09:00:00.001+01:00

Before I start I’d just like to thank everyone who commented on yesterday’s post. As you can see I made it through the night without any feline retribution! My little stars, Billie and Izzy, are the most compliant kitties I’ve ever met, they’ll even go to the vet without a fuss, so I will continue to balance knitwear on them for as long as I can!

Couldn't resist one more silly cat pic!

Is there a pattern or skill that you don’t yet feel ready to tackle but which you hope to (or think you can only dream of) tackling in the future, near or distant? Is there a skill or project that makes your mind boggle at the sheer time, dedication and mastery of the craft? Maybe the skill or pattern in one that you don’t even personally want to make but can stand back and admire those that do. Maybe it is something that you think you will never be bothered to actually make but can admire the result of those that have.

As I mentioned the other day, if I want to make a pattern and it includes a skill I don’t have then I generally throw caution to the wind and just try it. There is, in fact, one exception to that so far and that is colourwork. In general there are not that many colourwork projects I am drawn to, but there are a few patterns I really like and so far I have shied away from them. One reason for this is that I have decided in my mind that it will be fiddly and awkward and will take far more concentration than I can usually muster up while I am knitting. This doesn’t normally stop me though, I’ll happily sit and knit in stitch patterns and cables both of which do require at least a modicum of attention to be paid to them. I invariably try to have some sort of simple project on the go so that if I have to concentrate on something else I have something to knit which requires no thought. So just what is the hold-up with colourwork? After much thought on this matter I have to conclude that it is because I am tight. That's right, because I am too cheap to go and buy yarn in 5 different colours when I may actually only need a quarter of a ball of each. However, I finally feel like I am ready to stop making excuses and dive in to colourwork and I have a 5 point plan to ease me in.

1. Learn to spin. In order to save myself the cost of all that different coloured yarn I will be able to spin small amounts and avoid wastage. I will ignore any comments which point out how much I have spent on spindles and fibre in this process!

2. Test the waters with a slip stitch pattern, such as the Patterned Mittens (all Rav links today folks) from Knitting 24/7. Only one colour per row seems much more doable.

3. Up the ante slightly with a 2 colour pattern such as Eskimimi's Snowbaby Hat The bonus of this is that I can buy two colours and then make a second hat with the colours inverted.

4. All being well I can stick with 2 colours but move on to a more intricate pattern, these gloves should be perfect.

5. I should be a total pro by then and ready to take on as many colours as a pattern can throw at me. I think I'll try and prove this by knitting something like these Cupcake Mittens, as long as I've managed to spin enough yarn by then, of course.

And now for something completely different.....

2011-04-01T08:54:00.001+01:00

This is an experimental blogging day to try and push your creativity in blogging to the same level that you perhaps push your creativity in the items you create

And so without further ado I present a piece of photographic 'art' I like to call Catwalk Models!

Where are they now?

2011-03-31T09:00:00.003+01:00

Whatever happened to your .................................?

Write about the fate of a past knitting project. Whether it be something you crocheted or knitted for yourself or to give to another person. An item that lives with you or something which you sent off to charity.

I love the idea of this topic, seeing finished projects on peoples blogs is great but this has made me think that it would be a great idea to check back in six months later to give a true appraisal of an item. It is standing up to wear? Do you even really wear it or is there some heretofore unthought-of flaw in the design that only became apparent after a couple of wears. This is something I hope I can bear in mind for future posts.

However, for today I'm actually going to look at an item which I've never actually blogged about. In fact these socks were knitted long before I had a blog and before I joined Ravelry. I love them a lot so I thought it would be nice if they got a few moments in the spotlight.

Terrible phone pic before I put them on yesterday

These socks bear the title of my first ever completed pair of socks - completed being the operative word here. My first foray into sock knitting was with a sort of dusky pink ball of Opal Uni and a set of splitty bamboo DPNs. I got just past the heel, I was enjoying the process of the knitting and I was pleased that the construction of socks had finally lost it's mystery but the endless dull pinkness was too much. I put down the sock and started something else and by the time I went back to it I was lost. But, the seed was sown, I knew then that I could enjoy sock knitting so I splashed a little bit more for some Opal Feelings. I was enchanted! It's quite sad, but the anticipation of a new colour turning up kept me going and I finished the first sock and then the second. They weren't perfect, but they were my first socks. I wear them quite regularly and 4ish years on they are still going strong. When I was knitting them there were some quite thin bits in the yarn, I just kept knitting and now there are a few dropped stitches where the yarn has completely snapped.

Wash and wear seems to have felted these stitches in place though and seem in no danger of getting any worse. The only other niggle, which I have had to learn to deal with is that they just don't quite match.

That little sliver of a pink stripe on the toe there was my first lesson in accepting that socks are difficult to make match. I've made many pairs of socks since, many more elaborate than these, but I still feel a little bit of pride when I take them out of the drawer and slip them on. I hope to be wearing them for many years to come.

Tidy mind, Tidy stitches

2011-03-30T08:45:00.004+01:00

How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised? It seems like an easy to answer question at first, but in fact organisation exists on many levels. Maybe you are truly not organised at all, in which case I am personally daring you to try and photograph your stash in whatever locations you can find the individual skeins. However, if you are organised, blog about an aspect of that organisation process, whether that be a particularly neat and tidy knitting bag, a decorative display of your crochet hooks, your organised stash or your project and stash pages on Ravelry.

When it comes to my stash, it is less that there is method in my madness and more that there was a method there once. Every now and again I have a grand sort out but gradually it all gets rummaged through (because what you need is always at the bottom) and my neatly organised stash is once again just several boxes full of yarn, odd needles, patterns and stitch markers.

Downstairs stash -recently tidied, the kind of order I treasure

Upstairs stash - reflecting reality!

Overall I’m fine with this, once in a while I get in the right mindset and spend a couple of hours making little piles out of my yarns and nestling them lovingly together in a box. I know that chaos will gradually return, but it rarely escapes the confines of the box so it’s ok. The only thing which really causes a problem is when I tuck UFOs in the box with the stash. I always do this with the best of intentions, the project, yarn, pattern and any row counters all get packed in together, but before long rummaging happens and they all get separated. Usually they can be reunited but rarely can I make any sense of it and I’m left wondering where on earth I got to with the project.

To solve this problem I’m making a real effort with new projects to keep them painstakingly documented. I know now that the actual project itself may not stay all tidily together so I write stuff down that will help me figure it all out if I stop work on something for a while.

Using this combination of Android app and a notebook I am so far managing to keep everything straight. Apart from the final stitch count for the scarf I designed at Christmas, I distinctly remember writing that down round here somewhere.........

Skill + 1UP

2011-03-29T09:00:00.002+01:00

Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year, Have you learned any new skills or forms of knitting and crochet.

I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about this question, mainly because not much really springs to mind – at least when it comes to knitting. In the last year I’ve taken up dying and spinning, both wonderful and fulfilling fibre related activities, but my knitting itself has remained fairly breakthrough free. By no means is this because I think I know it all or feel I have no room for improvement, in fact I’ll be looking at things I’d like to learn later in the week. So what can I write about today? I thought about why I hadn’t really learned any new knitting skills in the last year and it brought me, very neatly, back to a point I touched on yesterday. Because I am very pattern driven, I see a garment I must make and nothing else will do, if I don’t have a particular skill that’s needed for the pattern I will learn it then. I begun by making hats so I learned knit and purl and K2tog, I fancied making a lacy poncho so I learned yarn overs, wanting a jumper made me learn increases...and so on. For me this was a really great way to learn, I never took on too much at once and learning something and immediately putting it into practice is a brilliant way to help a new skill stick. And so it was that last year, after 9ish years of knitting, I finally tackled short rows. I’d never really needed them before. I knew that some people used them to create a bit more room in the front of their jumpers but my small and humble, entirely non mountainous boobies meant that this wasn’t something I was ever likely to do! My motivator in the end was to be the toe-up sock. Despite being perfectly happy knitting my socks top down I’d seen a few toe up patterns that tickled my fancy, so I dived in. I have to say that short rows are not my favourite thing to do, I find the wraps can be difficult to see and picking them up is fiddly, but I don’t hate doing it and I’m glad that I added toe up socks to my repertoire. So now all I need to do is remember that for toe up socks you don’t need to knit the pattern all the way around until after the heel. Maybe if I’d got that into my head soon then this sock would have a partner, rather than just a sad re-wound ball of wool!

A Tale of Two Yarns

2011-03-28T21:13:00.001+01:00

So here we are on the first day of Knitting and Crochet Blog week, I’ve not really blogged too much recently due to not really having much to blog about. Working with these guided topics over the next week is therefore something of a godsend and hopefully once the week is over I’ll actually have built up enough to talk about once my blog returns to normal. So without further ado today’s post is entitled A Tale of Two Yarns:

Part of any fibre enthusiasts hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used , are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

When it comes to picking my knitting projects I’m almost 100% pattern driven, I’ll find something I really want to knit and either try and get hold of the yarn suggested or find a suitable substitute. It is very rare that I’ll buy a yarn ‘just because’ and then try and find something to do with it. Except for sock yarn because everyone know it doesn’t count and, well, I’ll make socks with it! However, this doesn’t mean that I don’t have yarns that I love and foremost among those is Rowan Kidsilk Haze. I will however say that I initially became drawn to this yarn because of the amount of patterns I loved that called for it. In fact, writing this now I can’t say if I covet it because of its soft, fuzzy, sheeny luxuriousness or because there are so many wonderful patterns that I want to make with it. So, motivation aside, I buy Kidsilk Haze and it’s chubby sibling Kidsilk Aura, whenever I see it at a bargain price. I don’t think what I’ll make with it because I know there is a pattern out there for it. I don’t even really care what colour it is, I just buy it. And, as if to reward my loyalty, when I saw a pattern in the latest Rowan Magazine for a gorgeous shrug which I just had to have for my wedding day....well, there sat in my stash was the perfect white Kidsilk Haze. However, I must admit that I have actually never completed a project with it yet so hopefully my wedding shrug will break that cycle.

This here is my Slouchy cover-up from Rowan Studio 5 99% done, but I completely crapped up the shoulder joins and haven’t yet had the heart to try and redo them

And this one is my Sloppy Joe from Rowan Studio 12. Basically the ribbing annoyed me and I couldn’t keep count and had to keep unknitting bits of it. I’ll find the patience to knuckle down and finish it one day, because I really like knitting with the Kidsilk family and can’t wait to finally have a fuzzy, luxurious garment made from this wonderful stuff. Oh and a word of warning, hide it from your cats, mine like to eat it!

My second choice of yarn is a yarn I don’t love, but feel a kind of grateful nostalgia towards. I’ll probably never ever use it again, but before a wonderful world of yarns opened up in front of me it was all I knew and for that it will always hold a place in my heart.

Back when I was learning to knit I knew nothing of Internet yarn stores, eBay or lovely natural fibres. All I knew was that if I wandered down to my local Co-op department store I could buy 100g of Patons Fab! For 99p. I could have my pick of colours, 274m of acrylic and a free exclamation mark, all for less than a pound. It was great to start with, I was knitting hats and I could get loads out of one ball, more if made them stripy. I learnt to combine knits and purls to make patterns, to decrease, to use slip stitches and how slip stitches pull the knitting in and result in a hat you have to give to a child. Me and my Fab! such adventures. One day I decided I was ready to try a jumper, I’d recently discovered Knitty and wanted to try this pattern. With no further ado (or thought of gauge or fibre content) I bought some spearmint coloured Fab! and cast on. All went smoothly and a few weeks later I had my jumper. It was a bit short and wide but I’d heard of blocking so I gave it a go and learned my first lesson about ‘killing acrylic’. No matter, it still looked fine and I proudly wore it for a day and vowed never to do it again! I was not terribly warm, yet I was quite sweaty, not long after that I got acquainted with natural fibres and the Fab! was consigned to my history books...and my bank balance has never really recovered from that.

Self sabotage

2011-03-17T11:11:00.000Z

Looking at my spinning projects, all so tempting and numerous, I know that really I should just concentrate on one and actually try to finish something. Yet somehow I accidentally ended up on Etsy and once again fell in love with some Shunklies fibre. Luckily I’m really unsure exactly how I want to spin them, so hopefully by the time I’ve come up with a plan I will have possibly completed another project.

These are 2 beautiful bright bright bright merino batts, with little mohair curls. I can’t decide if I want to spin a yarn which gradually goes from blue to pink throughout the whole skein or if I’d like it to phase back and forth in gradual stripes. I like the idea of both, but wonder whether the latter would suit my attention span a little better!

This is a blend of merino and silk and once again I just fell in love with the colours. I’d like to make a 4-ply with this, but I’d also like it to stripe. I think this may involve me splitting up the entire thing, grouping the colours and laying them out carefully in the right order. This sounds like effort, so I can’t imagine I’ll be starting any time soon. I’m enjoying the planning of it anyhow.

And finally, this is the reason I ended up on Etsy having my little fibrey accident.

I was having a little look for jewellery for the wedding and I hope you’ll agree that this is just perfect. Those two little birdies look so happy and content sharing their little branch that I just couldn’t resist. The shop is here bird fans.

Catch up

2011-03-15T20:03:00.001Z

I’ve not had much time for blogging recently, which is a real shame, but with 80 days to go until the wedding there seems to always be something else which needs my attention. For this reason I am really looking forward to Knitting and Crochet Blog Week at the end of the month, loads of info here if anyone wants to join in. This is particularly great for me at the moment, because having set topics to write about and knowing them in advance means that I can prepare for the posts in the shorts lulls in wedding preparation, rather than finding time to sit down and write a whole post in one go. It does mean that I should really make sure that I am completely up to date with posts about my current projects, because it will be a week of writing about other things. So with that in mind, this is the current state of all my spinning projects


Stripy black, white and grey merino, chugging along slowly


The sparkly bfl from FeltStudioUK, nearly 1/4 done and loving the sparkles

Merino tencel from FeltStudioUK, now on the second ply. this is sooo shiny

My knitting projects are all mostly hibernating, except for the wedding shrug which is growing slowly, I haven't taken a picture because it is still a white rectangle, just a bit longer than it was before.

And for the biggest project of all, the wedding, I have now purchased bridesmaids dresses and my shoes, my lovely lovely shoes! The bridesmaids dresses are a rather surprising shade of blue – surprising in that I don’t really do blue and I was just so sure they would be pink. Hey ho, best get off and rethink the flowers!

Small triumphs

2011-03-15T10:05:00.001Z

Last weekend was crazy busy, I even took Friday off work and still felt like I had no time to sit still and just make stuff. My wedding shrug still looks like a rectangle – albeit a slightly longer rectangle than before – and I still have many spindles half full of singles with no friends to be plied with. There is one exception though,

This is a teeny tiny skein made from that little bit of green fluff that came with my FeltStudioUk the other week. I’m really pleased with it, even though it is only wee. I didn’t bother to measure it and I haven’t checked to see what weight it is yet, but it looks like yarn and seems nicely balanced so I’m happy. The more eagle eyed among you may notice that I’m posting about this finished yarn, yet I have made no mention of the sparkly pink stuff that was so very nearly finished a few posts back. Well, I finished plying it, washed it and then it became very clear that my plying had been a little overenthusiastic. A little trip back round the spindle to remove some of the plying twist is very much in order. However when it is done I shall have just over a hundred metres of sparkly loveliness and I have most certainly learnt an invaluable lesson about plying twist.

Shrugging off the crazies

2011-03-01T19:35:00.001Z

I'm still not really sure where my camera cable is so it's back to the crappy phone cam pictures. Not ideal but I have actual knitting to share and no matter how beautifully I attempt to describe what is essentially a white fuzzy rectangle, I think a photograph is a much better medium. So this is my wedding shrug in all it's white, fuzzy, rectangular glory.

So far I have done 4 repeats of the 21 needed for the main body of the shrug. Each repeat is essentially 26 rows of stockinette with the odd short row thrown in for fun so this is fairly mindless - i.e soothing balm for a wedding addled brain. For clarification the short rows are actually for shaping, not just fun! They ensure that this piece forms a flat ring, like a running track, rather than just a loop, helping the garment sit nicely round the shoulders. Now, I think I may have mentioned that I was knitting this in white with little silver sparklies, however when I tried to add the project to Ravelry I began to suspect that this was not the case. I could find no such yarn in my virtual stash, there was white Kidsilk Haze and pale blue Kidsilk Night (with silver sparklies) but no white and sparkly. So I went back to my actual stash and found that there was indeed some non sparkly white in there which when placed next to the sparkly stuff I was knitting with......

showed that I had indeed made a mistake. The whiteness just makes the yarn I had been using look a bit grubby. It's a very subtle difference, but I think I would have been so disappointed when I tried it on with my dress. Thank heavens I had only knitted 30ish rows when I noticed. So I've started again with the correct yarn, lets just hope I don't change my mind about my wedding dress and have to start again with a whole new colour!

In non wedding news, I have been spinning. Having freed up a couple of spindles I started spinning both of the new braids I got the other day. They both contain fibres I've not spun before and I'm enjoying the differences. The merino tencel blend feels almost elasticy when I draft it, it's quite strange but I love the shine of the yarn I'm spinning. The BFL is not so different to what I'm used to but I'm enjoying working with it, mainly because it's sparkly!

The ones at the front are the new ones. I'm thinking I may need to find a bigger jar for my spindles!

Calm

2011-03-01T12:28:00.002Z

Just a quick post, I've been meaning to post for a few days but I have lots of photos to take and I still haven't charged up my camera.

I've managed to calm myself down about the expectations for the wedding, the sense of rising panic is abating and I have decided that this is proportional to the amount I knit on my wedding shrug. Because the wedding is in June I have chosen to knit this to wear as it's not too heavy and is a nice little detail. I had a little false start with it, highlighting the dangers of stashing things for years and then relying on your memory to find the right yarn in said stash. This is explained better with pictures so I'll save it for later.

As well as this knitting and a lot of spinning, I have also been dabbling in card making in order to make my wedding invitations.

I'm pleased with them, they are very simple with a little bit of sparkle, but I'm very relieved to find that I'm not really enjoying making them that much. Once they are done I can leave card making to the card makers, safe in the knowledge that I don't need to divide my crafting time any further to incorporate yet another craft - phew!

Stress

2011-02-25T08:59:00.001Z

I'm not one for stress, I don't enjoy it and I don't thrive off it like some so I try not to do it. Yesterday the world seemed to have other ideas and I'm stressed about being stressed about things I don't want to stress about. Marvellous. However, while all around me were demanding answers about wedding cakes and cars and flowers and all manner of other matrimonial fripperies I had new fibre to play with. Thank heaven for sheep.....and Etsy! Cue terrible phone pics - I really need to find the cable to charge my camera!

So pretty...this is a merino and tencel blend which is so soft and smooth I kind of want to sleep on it and the colours are just irresistible.

This is BFL with sparkles, I've only spun merino so far so I thought I'd give BFL a go and these colours are fantastic - even if they do remind me of a shell suit I have in the 80s. These are both by Daniela of FeltStudioUk and I can heartily recommend her. The braids came so quickly and she has so many colours to choose from, plus she slipped this in my package too:

I don't know what fibre this is and I would never choose greens to buy, but it is so lovely that I started to spin it immediately - despite needing to finish plying the sparkly pink merino. Oh well, I guess the heart wants what it wants - and right now any distraction can only be a good thing.

Exciting!

2011-02-22T19:26:00.001Z

Even though I have been spinning since New Year, I haven't yet made a proper complete yarn to speak of. Although I did spin a small sample and ply it (blogged here), that one doesn't really count. As I've bought and made more spindles I've been starting more and more projects and ended up with loads of spindles full of singles, but no finished objects. Given that this is the way I manage my knitting projects as well, this really shouldn't come as a surprise to me and I probably shouldn't try to fight it. However, I have actually finished two matching singles and started to ply it last night.

I think I was so enchanted by the sparkles that I was spinning in with this that I just got on with and it will now be my first finished yarn, despite being the fourth one I started. It's probably only about 20 grams of yarn, so just a little skein, but I already love it, my first born yarn!

A new spindle arrived yesterday, bought from this seller on eBay. I like it a lot, it's pretty and spins nicely for a long time. The fibre I'm spinning on it is the lovely bright merino I got from Shunklies recently. I've split it in half and I'm going to spin 50g as is, all the colours mixing together and for the second 50g I'm going to try and split the colours up a little and try and preserve some of the bright colourfulness of the top. And maybe I might sneak some sparkles in there too - for motivation you understand!

Good Thing no.5

2011-02-16T12:29:00.000Z

I nearly changed the title of this post because every time I look at it I get Mambo no. 5 stuck in my head (the Lou Bega version, anyone remember this?) Anyways..moving on! Yesterday I hinted at some luvverly new fibre I have acquired:

On the left is some super dooper brightly coloured merino top and on the right is some wonderful sparkly bits which I will be adding to everything I spin with gay abandon from now on. Both from Shunklies Etsy shop. This was my first foray into buying on Etsy and it was a pleasure - although I'm kinda wishing I'd never looked now because there is sooo much stuff I want on there. I'm going to hold off on spinning the top for a little while until I can decide exactly how I want it, but I have spun some of the sparkle into this candyfloss pink.

You can't really see the sparkle in a photo, but it is there and it makes the magpie in me very happy indeed.

A good list

2011-02-15T12:02:00.001Z

I'm having a funny old time at the moment, people close to me having OMG Dramaz and the like, so I've been a little preoccupied of late. However, good stuff has been happening too and because I'm a cheery sort I'll skip right over the crap.

Good thing no.1. Izzy is much much better now, she actually feels like a cat now rather than a bag of coathangers. On the flip side she has now turned into a speshul snowflayke princessy nightmare. Obviously she got a little too accustomed to being fattened up and now we can't even go near the fridge without her shouting at us for titbits. Sigh.

Good thing no.2. I won a year's supply of Tetley tea! Twitter is a marvellous thing you know. I've been retweeting every Friday for weeks and never thought I'd win, but win I did and when it arrives I shall finally have an answer to the question of how much tea is a year's supply of tea.

Good thing no.3. I dyed some yarn and it is good.

I've attempted brown a few times by mixing up colours and got something unexpected each time. This time I used some brown Sugarflair paste which seems to have worked really well. I used 3 jam jars for this yarn, the brown in one, some pink Silver Spoon food colour in another and some lemon lime KoolAid in the third. I dunked a corner of the skein in each and microwaved the lot. In an ideal world I'd have left a little less yarn in between each jar because I think I have too much white but I like it anyway.

Good thing no.4. Rowan have finally brought out a magazine I like (which is sort of bad because I really don't need to add projects to my queue!) after I stopped my subscription a couple of years ago. There is even something in there that I might knit for my wedding - although I'll have to get cracking on that one if I want to get it done on time, so maybe not.

And Good thing no 5.... will have to wait until tomorrow when I can take some pics of the really great new fibre I got in the post the other day. It's worth waiting for, at least it was for me!

Getting better

2011-02-07T10:46:00.001Z

After a week of worry and puzzlement we finally got a reason for Izzy's illness. I took her to the vet on Thursday and had to leave her there in the hope that someone could work out why she wasn't eating. Around 8:30 that night one of the vets phoned up and said that they thought they could feel a small soft mass in her tummy. We immediately put 2 and 2 together and asked them if it could be an earplug. After opening her up it was found to indeed be an earplug which she had eaten and was stuffing up her insides. Given that I had found a nice sicky pile of four earplugs and an elastic band a couple of days before she went to get spayed I should have realised sooner, but because she got ill after having an operation we all got fooled into thinking it was the anaesthetic that did it. So she is recovering at home, trying hard to grow back all her shaved fur with no idea of how much vet bills are!

Because we have been having to watch her pretty much 24/7 and also because I seem to have some kind of mystery wrist pain I haven't really done much of anything the last few days. I tried to knit some of Stu's cardigan, but that really hurt so I have been spinning in short bursts just to feel like I'm doing something. Hopefully in a few days I should have a second length of green yarn to ply with the bottle green I finished a while ago, I haven't bothered to take a picture of this because it is quite boring, even if I do say so myself. My black white and grey stripy stuff is growing slowly, I'm really enjoying the striping so I think I'll probably do a lot more yarns like this in the future. Here's a little piccy, you can't see the white bits but you can see the other stripes. Now I just need to think what to do with it when it's done.

Busy with Izzy

2011-02-01T19:17:00.002Z

Once again it's all about the cats today. Little Izzy continues to be poorly and now has not voluntarily eaten a thing since Friday. We're off to the vet again tomorrow, but until then we are working hard to get enough food in her to keep her going. This has involved a few scratches and lots of flying tuna. Stinky. This is really frustrating for us, but mostly for Billie, especially in the mornings when we go off to work and leave her effectively on her own with no one to play with. She's been quite well behaved but I can see that her pent up energy is making it a struggle to be good.

In the midst of all this we have managed to book our wedding. It's happening in June, so once Izzy is better it will be all hands to the pumps to try and get that properly organised. We are going for a fairly laid back affair so hopefully it shouldn't cause us too much stress, but those sound like famous last words to me! So with everything else going on I've not really had much time for craft. I did finish spinning up two very small bits of fibre that came free with one of my new spindles. I thought I'd spin them on their own and then ply them together just so that I could give plying a go really.

Not great, but not terrible either. there is a small amount of the fibre left as one of my plies was a lot thinner than the other and I'm probably going to spin that up so that I can try out chain plying. Chain plying preserves the colour order of singles and my latest projects is striping from black to greys to white so I'd really like to chain ply that instead of relying on 2 singles with matching stripes.

Oodles of spindles

2011-01-27T19:23:00.001Z

I'll start with a quick kitty update, because they really have been my main focus since yesterday and any crafty activities have been slotted around them. They need sympathy at the moment so if one of them climbs into my lap then my project gets put down right away. Izzy is not a happy cat at all, she did a monumental upchuck just after she got home and again in the night and she just looks a bit sad. We are hoping she'll perk up soon but we're keeping an eye on her. Billie is like a new cat though, she's been my little shadow and is behaving herself beautifully, long may it continue!

Anyway, cats aside I've managed to get a little spinning done, mainly to try out my two new spindles. Here's my little collection in a rather lovely painted jam jar that my friend Marion made me about 13 years ago.

The front two are the new ones, the one on the left was sold on eBay by someone who'd got it as part of a kit but hadn't taken to spinning and the second one was from this seller who makes them. I tried to take a nice close up of this but it hasn't worked too well. You can just make out the notch at the bottom which allows you to turn the whole thing over and use it as a bottom whorl instead. I like it a lot, it has nice little details and it came with a small amount of fibre which meant I could check out how it spins without starting on any of my fibre.

And, just quickly, because I mentioned it once and never took a picture, here is my plain boring sock I started at Christmas using yarn I dyed with Kool-Aid waaay back. I've kind of ground to a halt because of other projects but here it is.

You what!

2011-01-27T11:11:00.000Z

Last night's wedding venue appointment has been postponed until Saturday, but the lady was very apologetic and let us know all the dates that were free. So instead of going there or spending the evening knitting or spinning we high tailed it round to my parents and had a big old wedding pow wow Between us we have decided that our favourite date was June 3rd, so providing the venue looks good I shall be getting married in just over 4 months - eek!

However, for today I cannot be thinking about all that at all. We finally shipped the kittens off to the vet to be neutered today, we'd left it longer than we intended and being a boy and a girl we didn't want to risk any incidents. A few days ago we spotted Billy clambering on Izzy's back and making a very inept job of humping her so the phone call to the vet was made with haste. Stu took them in this morning and a short while later I get a text saying that Billy is a girl! I am still in shock, Billie (as she henceforth shall be known) can't be a girl! The vet said they understood how it happened, she is very big and is a total bruiser and you know...the humping. So I've been out today and bought them some slightly less gender specific collars, all the while cursing the stooopid woman we got them from.

So for tonight I will hopefully be getting some actual knitting and spinning done while I help my kitty get in touch with her feminine side.

Bridezilla awakes

2011-01-25T12:11:00.000Z

I had a post planned for today, all about the spinning I've been doing and the new knitting book I got as a replacement for a duplicate Christmas present.However, I'm feeling far too distracted for this so I'm just going to write a quick post about what's on my mind.

Wedding.

I could stop there, because that is basically what's going on in my brain. When we got engaged in June we both knew that we wanted to get married as soon as possible but we are just now really starting to organise it. Tonight we are off to see a lady about the reception and we may even have a date by the end of the day and all of a sudden I'm writing lists of things to organise, things to think about, trying to think of things I've not yet thought of but may need to think about thinking about...and so on. I'm aware that I'm being a weeny bit crazy and hope this is not a sign of things to come. With any luck I'll be feeling a bit more lucid and grounded tomorrow if things are a little more concrete. Til then!

Yarn - I made it, I did.

2011-01-20T16:11:00.002Z

My first yarn

A couple of weeks work and I have finally completed my first spindle full of yarn, hurrah and a big pat on the back for myself. Quite frankly I was beginning to be a little sick of the sight of bottle green so I pulled out all of the stops to finish it off. The plan is now to spin up and equal amount of a lighter shade of green and then ply them together and achieve a hitherto unimagined greeny effect. Sounds unpleasant? I am fully prepared for just that outcome. But first this yarn needed to come off the spindle. I've spent a lot of time reading up on what to do next, many different people have many different preferences and I decided my best bet was to wind it all off on to my ball winder.

Voila. The obvious problem with this is that all of the really ropey yarn that I was making before the process became more natural is now on the outside of the ball with my slightly more consistent stuff lurking unseen inside somewhere. Would rewinding the ball to hide the dodgy bits be too conceited do you think? Or actually a good idea so that I have a good representation of the thickness of yarn I am going for on the second single? All of that aside I would like to introduce my new spindle which I made last night.

The ones I made the other day have sadly been put aside because we couldn't get a hook in without splitting the chopsticks. I've kept the whorls in case they fit on some replacement chopsticks, but for the moment I will have to make do with this one made from a dowel and a fimo whorl. It's not terribly professional looking and is probably not very well balanced, but it seems to spin and I look forward to taking it for a spin (arf!) later. I've got two more similar lengths of dowels to use, so hopefully this spindle will have a couple more friends before the weekend is out.

Ooooh, is that for me?

2011-01-19T15:35:00.002Z

5 minutes before I left for work yesterday (and about 5 minutes after I should have left for work yesterday) a knock on the door signalled the arrival of the postman with 5 parcels. I only had time to establish that 2 of them were for me, 1 from Texere and the other from Fabric Rehab, before I scurried out of the door. Unsurprisingly I spent most of my working day willing it to be 5 o'clock so I could get home and get into the contents of those parcels. So the second thing I did after closing the front door ( the first was feeding the cats who were apparently STARVING judging by the volume of the miaowing) was dive straight in.

Look, a big pile of colourful potential! I love that all of these were speculative purchases - I have no firm plans for any of it so I'm looking forward to a good few hours of looking at patterns and colour combinations and dreaming of all the possibilities.

These are 2 very different sets of mixed merino top from Texere. Looking at these I am very clearly a person of light and shade. I love splashes of bright colour, but I do enjoy darker colours especially blacks and greys. I guess this is what stops me looking like a clown on a daily basis. Anyway, I think this little selection satisfies any colour whim I might have for a while.

All of the fabric I purchased from Fabric rehab, however, is a touch on the less subtle side. Plain colours and simple patterns are relatively easy to find so I was looking for something a bit different. There are certainly some unusual prints here that will be perfect for bags and as accents on garments. I'm sure you'll agree that I have plenty to keep me busy here and hopefully plenty of news for my next post!

Knitty Winter 2011

2011-01-18T12:03:00.003Z

I was having a little browse about on Ravelry yesterday and spotted a few threads on the forums which suggested that the new Knitty was up. Luckily, I think I was a little late to the party, which meant that I had no trouble accessing it. As usual I head to the website half hoping that everything on there is completely fugly so I don't end up adding anything else to my queue of things to knit now. It sure is nice to have loads of choice, but every time I find a new pattern which I love love love another pattern ends up lying fallow for another few months. I really should learn not to look, but look I did and thankfully there is nothing there that is screaming out to be knit right now. Most of the patterns are not really for me, but I have faved a few on Ravelry with the vague intention that I might knit them one day. Jacqueline is a bit of a long shot, bulky cardigans are not something I often knit, but maybe one day I might feel the need. Shetlander I actually really like, but I'm still; feeling quite intrepid about colourwork so these will have to wait until I'm feeling brave. Maeva I also really like, there's loads of socks in my queue and I tend to choose a yarn and then match it to a pattern so maybe these will get lucky soon, or maybe they won't. Finally is Quest, which I think I really like but I'm not entirely sure. I think I'll wait until there are a few more completed projects on Ravelry before I make up my mind. So that's it, another 4 patterns in my favourites, but none of them are really threatening to leap to the top of the queue. Thank heavens!

Spin, spin, spin

2011-01-17T13:52:00.004Z

All advice I've read about learning to spin mentions spinning a bit every single day, so I have been. I must say that this seems to be doing the trick and I really feel like I'm starting to get there. The photo above probably doesn't look all that impressive, but I'm really rather proud of myself. I was expecting my first yarn to come out really thick and thin, but this is mostly thin and a bit thinner. It is by no means consistent yet but it is not as wildly varied as I thought it would be. The plan for this is to spin until the bottle green runs out and then spin another strand out of a lighter green and then ply the two together and see what I end up with.

I've ordered a load more top in various different colours, as well as some to dye myself and hopefully if will arrive soon so that I can take some pictures. Now obviously if I have all this tempting fibre on the way I'm going to need more spindles. Much as I wish that I could be the type of person who is 'project monogamous' I'm just not, so I've been busy crafting my own spindles.

They don't have hooks in yet so I have no idea how they spin, but they are only made from chopsticks and fimo so it won't break my heart if they turn out to be sucky. I've also got a length of dowel to use so I can make some that are a bit meatier than these dainty little things.

Believe it or not I have actually also found some time for knitting. The back of Stu's cardigan is done and I'm about 1/4 of the way up the right front.. I'd love to take a picture but every time I try there is magically a cat in the way. Maybe I'll try again when they are eating or chasing the laser pointer or something. So in lieu of a cardi pic here's a pic of the chief photo bomber herself.

Izzy cat

So....

2011-01-13T21:35:00.001Z

I've finally got myself into gear with the photos of my Christmas knitting and I guess this would be a good time to talk about all of the knitting goodies I got for Christmas too.

In the end I finished 5 projects before Christmas and they all went in the Christmas box until I decided on a recipient. Only 3 items ended up being given away as it turned out I'd been rather efficient buying presents. I could have given a couple of people something extra but I decided against it a) because it is so easy to forget the value of handmade items and give them away as a 'little extra' when they represent a huge undertaking and b) because I had rather taken a shine to the cowl I made and rather liked the idea of keeping it! Last seen modelled on the cat, you can see why I wanted it can't you?

I did however give Rob, my pub landlord this hat
Subtle twist hat (rav link) in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes

This scarf of my own design went to Emily, my sister in law to be

It's also made from yarn I dyed so I'm really quite proud of it. I'll be putting up a pattern for it as soon as I manage to find where I wrote down how many stitches there were before I started decreasing after the point!

Also an improvised pattern in a hand dyed yarn, this went to my auntie.

As well as all that I finished my 22.5 degrees shawl/scarf I've been working on for a while, pics will have to wait til I've blocked it though. So, that's what I gave but what did I get? So much lovely stuff, that's what. Stu's brother got me some Hiya Hiya sock circulars which I have been wanting to try for ages. I wasn't sure if I'd like them but I've nearly finished my first sock using them (will take pics of that soon too) and I'm getting on just great with them. I still needed dpns for the heel and will need them for the toe, but I have so many 'loose' dpns floating around that I won't need to hold a set back just for heels and toes when I'm using these needles. Stu's sister got me Cookie A's latest book Knit. Sock. Love. I love Cookie's patterns and I love this book. Em is totally knitworthy so I'll be making her a pair of socks from the book as soon as I can. She also hand made me this bag for my projects:

See, totally knitworthy! I also got Vickie Howell's Not Another Teen Knitting Book from Stu's mum and a scarf kit as well - lucky old me. I didn't get any knitting stuff from my own family though, I think they are all still struggling to understand that it's not just a phase.

Well, that was Christmas, I'll get back to looking forward again from now if you don't mind.

The cat sat on the.....

2011-01-11T14:22:00.003Z

As I still haven't got my photos sorted of my Christmas projects I'm sticking with looking forward today. Although a lot of my time (and daydreaming) is being taken up by spinning, I have finally managed to cast on for Stu's cardigan (the cardigan from Knits Men Want which I mentioned a couple of months back). I never normally knit for men because... well because I am lazy and I don't like to knit for anyone bigger than myself - unless it's a hat or something small. However, the silly man is going to marry me so I guess I can break the rules for him! I started knitting about a week ago and I've got a couple more inches to do on the back so it's knitting up pretty quickly in acres and acres of grey Cygnet Wool Rich Aran I got from Modern Knitting. Unfortunately I don't really have a good picture of it so you'll have to take my word for it. I did take pictures, but this happened:

I suggested that to Izzy that she might like to go and sit elsewhere. She responded thusly:

That's right kitten, make yourself comfy!

And this was when I knew it was game over for that little photo shoot.

However I do have a reasonable picture of my latest dye job, mainly because the cats haven't worked out how to photobomb a picture of things hanging from doors.

It's not a great picture, but it'll do. This was achieved with yellow and red Wilton's, poured in opposite sides of a dish so that the stuff in the middle sort of mingled into orange and then microwaved.. The red isn't quite as red as I'd like but the overall effect is what I was after. Hopefully it will be dry tonight and then I can twist it into a skein, because it always looks prettier like that.

2011

2011-01-10T14:44:00.002Z

Christmas and New Year have come and gone, for the most part pleasantly and I'm looking forward to a year ahead full of creating and inspiration. The holiday period boded well for this, lots of projects finished and much progress made on new projects. More on these soon (i.e. when I'm at home and can access my photos!), but today I'm all about my new project.....spinning! I know I promised myself I wouldn't think about it or even learn anything about it, but I couldn't help myself. Once I started hand dying the idea of knitting something from fibre I dyed and spun myself just seemed right. Like something I could really call my own. So for now here is a nice little pic of what has been exclusively occupying my mind for the last few days, not bad if I do say so myself.

...and a bit more...

2010-12-02T18:55:00.002Z

Now the snow has started it apparently does not want to stop, this is my back garden:

Not that my back garden is terribly interesting, but I think the layer of snow on top of the bin illustrates nicely the kind of weather we've been having! Just for fun we sent the kittens out to play in it, they were a little trepidatious about the whole thing but they didn't want to come in at all.

So due to the weather I got to skive off work and have actually been quite productive. We went for a long stomp in the snow and took lots of pictures whilst being continually amazed that there was snow halfway to our knees and then went to visit my currently incapacitated brother who can't actually go out in the snow at the moment. Once at home I decorated the Christmas Tree, made marzipan for the Christmas cake, made a whole batch of lip balm for Christmas presents. This evening I'm going to do a whole bunch of knitting and frame my latest cross stitch project - phew, I think a day at work would have been less crazy!

Here it is!

2010-11-30T09:56:00.002Z

Hurrah! This was taken on my walk to work this morning (check out Rochester castle just peeking out in the distance), it is still snowing now so hopefully I can be home and knitting before it gets dark tonight.

Last night I finished the curly wurly scarf, no pics yet until I'm sure that the curl can be tamed but it is a lovely colour (if I do say so myself) and is just the right length. Worst comes to worst I can keep it for myself so not a complete disaster. I do however have a photo of the cross stitch I finished now I have framed it, it is from the book Subversive Cross Stitch so if you are not fond of profanities this is not for you!

I love it, but inside I'm still 5 years old.

Where's my snow?

2010-11-29T11:30:00.001Z

So it seems for a second year in a row Britain is in the thrall of a snowpocalpse, schools shut, people having snow days etc etc. What have we got? Bugger all! There was a tantalising dusting this morning, which managed to whet my appetite for snow and then more bugger all. Disappointment, I has it.

On the plus side I'm actually making some headway into my Christmas preparations. Lots of stuff is ordered and on it's way, I've nearly finished another scarf for the Christmas box and I've finished the first of three cross stitch thingys for my friends. The scarf is one of my own devising, made from yarn I dyed myself so is truly a thing of my own making. Because of this I keep putting off photographing it in case it has to be quietly put to sleep for being crap! At the moment it is worryingly curly but if I can block that out it will be great, watch this space....(or if you never hear about it again, assume the worst and speak of it no more). Anyways, I'll be here dreaming of snow and hoping for a snow day to finish off my Christmas knits.

Strike a pose!

2010-11-26T12:10:00.002Z

Taking photos of my projects is sometimes a challenge. If I'm on my own I have to make do with a timer or a mirror or just take a picture of the FO artfully draped around the house. No more! The solution?......

Get a cat.

Pattern: Burberry Inspired Cowl Neck Scarf by Julianne Smith a really quick and easy knit which I can highly recommend. This is going in the Christmas box and I'll decide who it is for a bit closer to the day. Oh and the cat was loving it, she is a total camera ho and would probably have sat like that all day if I'd kept snapping her!

Photo story

2010-10-26T14:08:00.003+01:00

Ok, because it has once again been a wee while since I updated I'm just going to add a whole load of photos of what I've been up to and try and bring this up to date. I've got a few irons in the fire at the moment so the sooner I'm all caught up, the sooner I can talk about those. Onwards!

So.. dying occured - it went well I think, 2 lovely skeins of sock yarn to be proud of:

I started knitting a little triangle scarf/shawl with some of the Araucania I bought a while back

I finished my Charades and I love them

And... last but not least, my man, he knits!

New books

2010-08-19T11:20:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I talked about getting into my Autumn/Winter knitting, this was mainly because I just received two new books..well a book and a magazine. Firstly I ordered Knits Men Want because Stu wants me to knit him cardigan and this looked like a really good book. Turns out I was right, this has 10 simple patterns and I can actually see myself knitting a few of them. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the multiple gauge instructions that are used, but I can see how it is a good idea. I think my problem is that you have to knit a swatch of your chosen yarn and see what gauge you get and then you follow those instructions and it tells you your estimated yardage - or how many balls I need to buy of a yarn I must have already bought to swatch with! This is really just a minor logical flaw and I can probably work it out, but I've never knitted anything other than hats for men so I don't really have a feel yet for what I'll need to buy. For the moment though I don't have to worry about it, Stu is still deciding which garment he would like ( I think it's a toss up between this and this) and then he has to choose a colour. Decision making is not his strong point so it'll be a while before I'm worrying about yardage I think!

Despite having not made anything from the last copy of Knitscene I bought, I have just received the Fall 2010 edition and there is quite a lot in there I would like to make. The Lettuce Raglan is lovely, the Alexandra Hoodie is simple and useful looking and I have already bought the yarn for the Dorflinger Tee. That looks like a really quick knit so I'm tempted to start that as soon as the Cap Sleeved Top is done, even though there is so much stuff that has been in the queue much longer...oh well.

And... as predicted, yesterday I succumbed and ordered 2 skeins of undyed sock yarn and a whole load of Kool-Aid, expect news of some truly monstrous socks in the near future!

Oooooh crap!

2010-08-18T15:33:00.002+01:00

A few years ago I started knitting, I was fresh out of university, working as a volunteer and consequently very poor but quite rich in spare time. Since then I have got better and better jobs and can afford much nicer yarn and crafty things but have way, way less time to spend on hobbies. Consequently I try not to acquire new hobbies and spread that time any more thinly. Obviously buying a sewing machine and taking up sewing was a bit of a bump in the road, but I do enjoy it and the results are quicker than knitting so if I need a bit of (almost) instant gratification the sewing machine is there. Soooo, having resisted any urge towards weaving, foraying only sporadically into cross stitch and refusing to even read about/acknowledge the existence of spinning, I've been doing well. Except now I really really want to try dying my own yarn. I've spent the last two days obsessively googling dyeing yarn and reading every thread about it I can find on Ravelry so I suspect this is not a passing fancy and I will probably be back here in a few days showing off my first dyeing disaster!

I have done a wee bit of knitting this week, but not too much. I cast on for the first cap sleeve of the Cap Sleeved Top, did the ribbing, realised I'd forgotten some decreases and ripped back. After reading the instructions properly I cast on again, realised the instructions made no sense to me but stuck the decreases in where I felt they made most sense and now I'm ready to finish that sleeve tonight..... when I've stopped stroking my new yarns!

These are 2 skeins of Araucania Ranco I got for making scarves, I'm loving the colours so much that even though I would like to make two scarves for the christmas box, I suspect one of them will 'accidentally' end up with me. I can't decide which one I like best though.

Also purchased (eBay, I love you!) was 6 balls of Rowan Fine Milk Cotton in a nice lilac shade which are destined to become a Blossom from Kim Hargreaves Misty collection, I'll probably leave this til next Spring though because my thoughts are really turning to autumn/winter knitting now, but more on that tomorrow I think!

Progress (of sorts)

2010-08-13T11:43:00.001+01:00

After finally coming to a sort of agreement with the Izzy kitten last night (i.e, she would cease all nomming of knitting and I would stop threatening to put her in a sandwich) I finished up the 2nd front of my Cap Sleeved Top. I haven't bothered taking a photo, because its still just bits and bits are boring. Hopefully I'll have a photo of the FO before too long. I eventually cast on for the first cap sleeve after a long debate with myself about whether to bother. The sleeves are really tiny, but obviously I then have to sew them on (ugh!) and I think they top would look just as nice without them. But this top is called the Cap Sleeved Top and my skew whiff brain says that this top therefore must have cap sleeves! They should only take an hour or so each so I'm happy with my decision. Of course as I get towards the end of this project my mind is automatically gravitating to what I'm going to do next. Logically I should get on with Brights 2, I've almost finished the back and it is a really simple knit, but as I mentioned the other day I've let it sit for a while and have no clue where I got to. I'm pretty sure there must be a row counter deep in the bottom of my stash which will quick and comprehensively solve this mystery, but I'm kind of tempted to start something else. I think I'll have a good dig around tonight and if I can find it then Brights 2 will be next, if not then I'll pick something else. I like that, kind of letting fate decide!

Oh and the picture at the top? I started a blog post aaages ago about this years Lounge on the Farm which I abandoned because it took me so long to finish. This is me and the Mr on the Saturday night, getting midly squiffy and having a lovely time. I'm wearing cat ears and have slightly mentioned cats in this post, so it kind of fits!

No surprise there then.

2010-08-12T20:07:00.000+01:00

I picked up my cap sleeved top again last night full of confidence that I could finish the second front. This would leave me with only two little cap sleeves to knit, before seaming and adding button bands and collar ribbing. Much as I hate seaming and picking up stitches for edgings, at least knowing the main body of knitting was done would have felt like a milestone. Unfortunately two things happened. Firstly the kittens spotted me and, as predicted, they became a bit of a hindrance. (I think I may now deserve a prize for the understatement of the century there!) Then I realised I had no flipping clue how many rows there were supposed to between the end of the neck shaping and the beginning of the shoulder shaping. When I did the back and the left front I kept track of where I was like this....

Apparently at the time this was very effective and I knew exactly what I was doing. A few months down the line... not so much. What does this mean? I thought I'd cracked it when I found 11 little tally marks with the word 'neck' next to them, but after knitting 11 rows it was too short so clearly that's not it. I guess I'll have to do it by eye and hope it doesn't end up too wonky, whilst giving myself a stern talking to about post it notes.

New things

2010-08-10T10:54:00.002+01:00

As well as moving house, to a much bigger place, with lots of room for yarn and unfinished projects, I now have the two little trouble magnets above to keep me busy. They are called Billy and Izzy and they are 12 week old bundles of mischief - it's a good job they are so cute! I haven't tried out knitting in front of them yet, but they do love string and dangly things so I think I can predict the outcome. I did get a few rows of the Cap Sleeved Top done on Saturday while the kittens were sleeping, but it had been so long since I'd worked on it that I spent most of the time working out where on earth I'd got to! I seem to know what I'm doing now so hopefully I can get it finished before its too cold to actually wear it.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.1

Just a quick one..

2010-07-05T15:58:00.003+01:00

As my title suggests I'm just kind of dropping in here for a quick update. Quite a lot has been happening, both knitting and lifewise so I could go on and on, but it seems more fun to just stick it all in a list and I'll pick up the important points later on... and add some photos.

So what have I been up to the last couple of months?

Well, I've turned 30, locked myself out of my flat (twice), drunk some beer, started my first ever toe up sock, been to Cornwall, drunk some cider, finished my first ever toe up sock (and I liked it), been to work, played some video games, drunk some beer, enjoyed the sunshine, got engaged, been fishing and drunk some more beer. Coming up, I plan to finish my second ever toe up sock - hopefully identical to the first one, go to the Lounge on the Farm festival for the 4th year in a row and then move in with my fiance. All in all please imagine I have posted a picture of me grinning like an idiot and you have an idea how things are with me at the moment!

Oops

2010-04-27T12:28:00.002+01:00

You know you spend too much time playing video games when you see a loose vent cover on your walk home and have to resist the urge to wrench it off and see if there is a secret path behind it. That is all. No knitting to report.

Batman - Enemy of knitting!

2010-04-26T13:35:00.003+01:00

As predicted, since my PS3 arrived, playing games has rather eaten into my knitting time - as well as my sleeping, eating, socialising and cleaning up time. I wish I was kidding, I have caught myself planning meals which I can eat with only one hand. This is quite frustrating because I was just getting my knitting mojo back, trust me to have two hobbies which both demand the use of the same set of hands. This has led to me pondering about how I can possibly enjoy knitting and gaming at the same time and the answer, I have decided, is cutscenes. I generally find video game cutscenes to be a bit of a drag because some of them are so long... long enough to get a couple of rounds done in fact! With this in mind I'm thinking that I should make some kind of list, detailing the frequency and length of cutscenes in the games I play and then I can dub them either 'Knitting Friendly' or 'Enemy of Knitting'. Unfortunately the game I am playing at the moment is decidedly not knitting friendly. Batman: Arkham Asylum has completely sucked me in, I'm enjoying every second but there are just no pauses to knit in. Luckily tonight is telly night though, everything I like to watch is on a Monday night so I should get at least 3 hours of quality knitting time in. I'm currently half way up the second side of the Cap Sleeved Top so I would love to at least finish that off and I've just started my second charade after finishing the first one last week.

Pretty cool huh? I still really love the way the tiny blocks of colour spiral round the leg and I'm pleased to see that the stitch pattern doesn't get as lost in the colours as I'd feared. As ever with socks I felt a bit flat finishing this sock off. It feels like it should be a triumph once the toe is kitchenered up and the ends sewn in and you can try it on. It's a complete, wearable garment but completely no flipping use til you've finished another one! Unless, of course, you only have one leg.

Fit blokes + yarn = knitting fever

2010-04-15T15:07:00.002+01:00

I got home from work on Tuesday to find one of those little delivery cards the Royal Mail leave when they can't be arsed to squeeze something through your letter box. This could mean only one thing, my delivery from Celticove had arrived - yay! I love getting stuff in the post and I love getting knitting stuff in the post even more. I had been fairly restrained and only ordered two things, but one of them was a book and will inevitably lead to more purchases. Oops.

I got 6 balls of this Rowan Cashsoft 4-ply to make the pictured project (Clara from Kim Hargreaves Amber). This yarn totally does what it says on the tin because it is soooo soft. I spent a good ten minutes squishing and smooshing it and making cooing noises, let's hope it knits up to be just as nice. I know it looks like I'm going through a bit of a blue phase at the moment, but it is purely a coincidence. This shade was on offer and I didn't mind it so another blue sleeveless cardi it is.

Also purchased was Kim Hargreaves latest book, Misty. This has got loads of summery stuff in it, made from cotton and linen and lovely stuff for summer cover-ups. I'm not sure I'll get round to making any of it this summer but there are a few things I am itching to get started on. Fleeting, Haze and Blossom are all going straight in my queue. I also really like Jess, but wonder if my sister Jess would like it.. although if Jess has a Jess then I have totally got to have a Hannah.

Also through my door this week was Supernatural Series 3 and last year's Star Trek film. So that works out as precisely 822 minutes (13.7 hours no less) of sexy men parading around for my entertainment while I knit. If anyone needs me I'll be on the sofa!

What I did on my hols

2010-04-12T22:09:00.009+01:00

Back to work today after a glorious week of sleeping, knitting, beer drinking, eating, film watching and video gaming. Unbelievably I found it a little difficult to locate my enthusiasm this morning and I have spent the whole day thinking about which of the above things I would do first when I got home. The answer of course was as many of the above as I could realistically do at the same time. Unfortunately that ruled out sleeping, but I knitted with the TV on while my dinner cooked, then I ate dinner and watched TV and then I played Prince of Persia and knitted in the cut scenes and then knitted some more while Flash Forward was on. So, the only thing missing is the beer drinking - I'll get on with that a bit later in the week I think!

I guess a little round up of progress is probably in order.

The Cap Sleeved Top is coming along, the back is done and I've just started the armhole shaping on the left front. The front looks a bit weird because the stitches for the button band are kept on a holder to be knitted separately and then slipstitched on later. This seems a bit crazy to me but I guess it feels like I am getting the front done super quick because there are less stitches than usual at the moment.

I also have something which very nearly looks like a sock, just a couple more inches and a toe and I'll be done. Obviously I then need to knit another one...one thing at a time though eh?

And as well as all that I got on with a spot of T-Shirt mutilation at the weekend. I have got an enormous pile of T-Shirts which need to be Hannahfied but I just couldn't resist doing this one immediately.

This is a modification of one of the projects in Generation T by Megan Nicolay. Basically the instructions are for a halter neck, but instead of cutting across the back I left it the same as the front and threaded the ribbon through the front and back to be tied on one side. I like it! I've also got another one to do with the Space Shuttle on which I'll get on with very soon. I admit that I am slightly more obsessed with space travel than is becoming in a young lady, although I would never ever ever actually want to go into space myself. Hmm, deliberately quirky you say?

The boy in the yellow hat

2010-03-29T15:45:00.001+01:00

This picture represents a huge sigh of relief, not only does the Knotty But Nice hat fit Mike, it looks a whole heck of a lot better on him than it did on me. Thankfully now I can change the picture on my Ravelry project page as well so it no longer shows me grinning like a buffoon, wearing a hat that clashes with my hair!

Due to some minor laziness (and slight drunkenness) I haven't really done too much knitting the last few days. I had to postpone work on the Kai-Mei sock because I couldn't find any little stitch markers. Of course they were exactly where I thought they were, but because they are so tiny it took me two days to actually see them. Note to self: get glasses fixed! I did try and get on with them last night but the instructions were too confusing for a Sunday evening, maybe they'll make sense tonight? In the mean time I've just been plugging away at the Cap Sleeved Top, I've just started decreasing for the arm holes and it's going quite quickly so I'm hopeful this will be done quite soon... except I may have accidentally (just don't ask me to justify my use of the word accidental - I can't) purchased a Playstation 3 at the weekend. It hasn't arrived yet so I'm going to have to spend the next couple of days knitting like the furies because I suspect I won't be getting much done for a while. I'm actually tempted to see if I can find out which games have the longest loading times so that I can get a couple of rows done every time I die! A lot of my old PS2 games were brilliant for that, in fact you could have a small meal between the levels of certain games. For persistant multi taskers like myself there are not problems but opportunities.

Knotty But Nice

2010-03-23T16:19:00.005Z

Another night of telly and knitting yesterday saw me finishing the cable section of the Knotty But Nice hat and cruise through the 7 rows of ribbing. I got home from work tonight and started to decrease for the crown. An hour and a half later and I am done. I'm so proud of this hat, it just looks all cool and complicated. Clearly this is not a hat for myself though, anything this shade of yellow should not be allowed anywhere near my hair! Hopefully I'll see the intended recipient in the next few days and I can get a pic of them wearing it. I'm really hoping it fits him though, the cable pattern in the middle really pulls in so the centre of the hat is a lot snugger than the brim and the crown. If I make this again I will absolutely use a larger size needle for the charted part.

Normally as I finish a project I would be deciding what to cast on next, but after yesterday's little look at my UFO pile I really should be concentating on those. Of course knowing this I have all of a sudden come down with a dreadful case of startitis...must resist! Luckily the lastest issue of Knitty has arrived without bringing much for me to covet. I have added these socks to my queue, but I'm not so in love with them that they can't wait. Phew. So for the rest of the night I think I shall try and fix the shoulders on the Slouchy Cover Up and start the foot of the Kai Mei sock accompanied once again by the Brothers Winchester and the odd chocolate digestive. Yum!

Inventory

2010-03-22T15:52:00.005Z

After another heavy weekend (which incidentally began on Wednesday this week) of drinking, dancing, shouting and getting very wet on theme park rides, I decided that yesterday would be a sofa, DVD and knitting day. Apart from a quick trip to the post box I managed not to leave the house at all and I had a lovely day. I popped Series 1 of Supernatural in the DVD player and tried not to let my inappropriate thoughts about Dean Winchester get in the way of my knitting! Work continues apace of the Knotty But Nice hat, I'm about 3/4 of the way through the cable chart now so the end is definitely in sight. As planned I have also transferred the Cap Sleeved Top on to some of those spangly new Knit Pro Spectra tips instead of the straight Knit Lites it was on. I am so glad I did. I don't know if was because the Knit Lites are a bit 'swingy' due to the size of the ends or just because I haven't used straights for ages, but I was finding it difficult to knit more than one row without stopping. Of course that wouldn't be a problem if I was happy to wait until 2030 for a little cardigan, but even I might be growing a little impatient by then. The Knit Pro Spectra's are a little grippy and slow for someone who generally favours metal needles, but they are pointier than a lot of plastic needles and they are soooo pretty. Overall, I likes them!

Also yesterday, during the course of my general pottering about I made an enormous mistake. I got out one of the boxes with my stash in because I thought there might be a rogue DPN in there. There was (hurrah!) but what there also was was a whole load of UFO's which I had forgotten about (boo!). I did attempt to cover them up again with stash, but no I had to take a photo and now I have to face up to all of these half finished projects and try to make a plan for actually finishing them.

1. Kai-Meis. Not sure why I stopped work on these, given that they are further along than the socks I have been working on lately perhaps I should concentrate on these instead?

2. Slouchy Cover Up. Embarrasingly this has been 99% done for well over a year now. I made a total balls up of the shoulder seaming so I kind of hid this and pretended it didn't exist. All I need to do is unpick the dodgy seem, do it again properly and then pick up some stitches for the neck and then bam, FO! This is going to have to be a priority.

3. Sloppy Joe. Not a priority. Much as I love this and want it, I'm not really going to need it until winter. It went to one side because the ribbing is a total pain in the arse and I needed the needle tips for something else.

4. Brights 2. I have no idea why I stopped working on this. It will be a really useful summer cover up so I will try and get on woth this as soon as the Cap Sleeved Top is done.

5. Alpaca socks. I have lost count of the amount of times I have lost the book with the pattern for these in! I currently know exactly where it is, but these are really a winter garment so they are going to the bottom of the pile. I'll be keeping an eye on that book though!

I think that's it, I guess it doesn't look too bad now I've laid it all out... does it?!

Hello my pretties!

2010-03-20T16:22:00.004Z

Yay, they've arrived! These are my KnitPro Spectras which I have been so eagerly awaiting. I haven't actually tried them yet because I have been working on the Knotty But Nice since they arrived, but they are so very pretty just in the packet together so I don't really care. Tomorrow I will switch the Cap Sleeved Top off the straights I have been using and onto these and then I'll report back on how I like them.

Phew!

2010-03-16T20:29:00.007Z

I finally managed to stop procrastinating this evening and fished the Knotty But Nice hat out of the naughty corner. As expected it took me about 5 minutes to unknit back to the beginning of the row and I obviously haven't made whatever error it was again so I shall never know what it was. Why, oh why did I not just do that weeks ago? I think I'll skip the psychoanalysis though and just be pleased I've finally done it. Progress continues to be quite slow with this hat, I'm having to concentrate really hard on the chart and getting the cables right, but I'm really enjoying seeing the pattern form. Cables are great! I love how they look so impressive, but are really easy to make. Ok, well less talky, more knitty and I may have half a chance of finishing this before the height of summer!

Plans. Not for sleepy people.

2010-03-15T20:15:00.001Z

Yesterday evening was going to be knitting night. I had it all planned out, I had three projects all lined up and I was going to rotate between the three of them. I knew if I tried to stick to just one I’d give up quite quickly and get nothing done (I’ll go into that in a mo) so I put them all within arm’s reach. Then I sat down with the TV on, looking forward to watching Wonders of the Solar System (I am a total space geek) whilst making a nice dent in my knitting.... and promptly fell asleep. Guess I’ll have to try again tonight. Monday night is Glee night and that show is so damned perky I’m sure there is no way I’ll fall asleep this time. My main objective for tonight is to try and sort out the mess on the Knotty But Nice hat, which has been sitting in the naughty corner for quite some time now. I am well aware that even if I fix the problem and get loads done it is still very near the end of woolly hat season, but I am determined not to have this hanging around until Autumn. However, should I get frustrated with it again I have two other projects waiting in the wings.

This is the beginnings of the Cap Sleeved Top from Rowan Studio 11 that I mentioned in my last post. It nearly didn’t get started because I couldn’t find any 5mm needles but then I remembered that the Knit Lites I got for my birthday last year were 5mms. Obviously for novelty value I immediately sat myself down in a darkened room to knit with my super duper illuminated needles. Two things then dawned on me (aside from the fact that I may be mental). One, this top is stockinette. I can knit stockinette with my eyes closed, thus rendering light up needles a wee bit pointless. And two, these needles make my hands hurt. I think at most I have managed three rows in a, well, row before having to stop and move on to my third project, a nice easy sock, to give my hands a rest. This state of affairs is ok for the time being, but I have made a very exciting purchase which should remedy the situation as soon as it arrives. So I shall finish up today with a little plea to the Royal Mail to please bring me my Knit Pro Spectra set swiftly before I actually explode with anticipation!

Just yuck

2010-02-24T19:42:00.006Z

'My nose is just overflowing with awesome and I had to get some of it out'.

I'm not really one for quoting TV shows, but this little gem from How I Met Your Mother succinctly describes my state of health today, but in a much more pithy manner! Yeps, I've got the lurg again. Unfortunately this has not resulted in a couple of miserable but knitting filled days at home because I have far too much important work to do. Check me out, being a valuable employee! I was going to get on with a bit of knitting tonight but I got Rabbids Go Home for my Wii today, so I thought I'd stick it on and have a little look. That was about 3 hours ago, total time suck! But seriously, what's not to love about a game that has mental rabbits shouting BWAAAAH at people til their clothes fly off and collecting enough bits of bric-a-brac to pile up so they can climb to the moon? Nothing, that's what.

Anyway, just for appearances sake I will mention that I have been thinking about knitting. More specifically I have yet another couple of projects in mind. Firstly I can't get the Skew socks from the Knitty surprises out of my head. I'm thinking about using some Regia Colour I bought ages ago that looks like this (Rav link). These socks are just so clever looking, I love that they are constructed in a very different way to normal but still look cool. I sometime find that people try to do things differently and just end up with something that is way more fuss to constuct and are also fugly. I really hope that is not the case with these. I also ordered some Bamboo Tape yesterday for a little Cap Sleeve Top from Rowan Studio 11. I've been thinking about this for ages, but I have heard so many things about this yarn growing so I haven't risked it. However, I have decided that this will only be small and hopefully therefore not too heavy, plus the yarn was 69p per ball in the Kemps sale so I figure at under a fiver for the whole thing, if it grows I'll just give it to someone bigger. Obviously as tactfully as possible.

Right I'm having a total mare typing this and trying to propel my rabbids over a chasm, using only the power of a sick man's farts. Toodles!

Well whadd'ya know!

2010-02-10T14:31:00.003Z

Marie!

Just as I thought, shortening the skirt and cutting a new facing for the hem was really very easy. I actually just used the original pattern piece as a guide to get the correct curve and then sliced off the bottom of the skirt and used the off cut as the facing. I had to unpick the seams for this bit though because it wouldn't quite fit round otherwise. I then sewed the facing to the bottom of the skirt, set about ironing it, realised the seam was going to be on the outside, unpicked it and did it again correctly. Then I had a cup of tea while I got used to the idea that I needed to hand sew the top of the facing to the inside of the skirt. Frankly I could have done with something a bit stronger, I do hate hand sewing, but I didn't want it to look like it had been sewn by a blind donkey so tea it was. Clearly I got on and did it and I'm really pleased with the end result. So pleased in fact that if Jess doesn't come and claim it soon I may just have to keep it! Actually I do have plans for one of my own, but with a few little modifications. More on that soon, but for now I'm just going to bask in the glory of a job (finally!) well done.

Cable Why!

2010-02-07T14:27:00.002Z

I've been trying to write this post about my Knotty but Nice for a little while now, but every time I think about it I become overcome with entirely unnecessary rage! Needless to say it is not going well and the red mist is not really helping with my problem solving. The silly thing is that I don't think it is even that bad, but I can't find the problem and unknitting cables is a total pain in the arse. I think I'll have to put it aside for a couple of days until I've stopped being angry with it and no doubt I will then get it sorted in seconds. Now, I am aware that I regularly recommend knitting as a brilliant way to relax and my current attitude isn't really endorsing this! Getting frustrated with something that I do purely for pleasure does seem a bit silly, but I guess that means that I am challenging myself rather than just sitting down with a simple mindless project. It's probably character building!

So while that hat is on the naughty step I am going to try and revisit an old project that has been hanging around for a while...the Marie skirt that I started sewing for Jess sometime around August. I'm not entirely sure why I ground to a halt on this one, I think it is because it needs shortening and that means that the facing for the hem will need to be a different size to the original pattern piece. For some reason I have convinced myself this will be hard. It won't, so hopefully I can break the habit of a lifetime and stop procrastinating long enough to actually get on with it. Maybe the fact that I have had no lovely pictures of finished objects for a wee while will spur me on... let's see!

Tidying up

2010-02-05T10:24:00.000Z

I’ve had a few days off from posting, not (as is usually the case) because I have done absolutely nothing of note but because I have actually been very busy indeed. When I moved into my flat in September I wanted it to be a little haven of loveliness, but actually it has just been really messy. Moving was a bit of a drama, I moved out of a massive bungalow in to a tiny flat and somehow had to work out where to put everything. Then once I had worked that out I had a whole load of boxes and moving paraphernalia with nowhere to put them. This resulted in unsightly piles of boxes taking up the room I needed to put stuff away in and my flat looking rather shabby. So this weekend my brother finally came and relieved me of all of those boxes and I could finally finish putting everything in it’s place. It has taken me the best part of 3 days but it looks lovely, although slightly unrecognisable. When I got home from work yesterday I had a fleeting moment of panic as I thought I had been burgled!

Oh and just a quick note, I’ve found my ball winder, so no more hand rolled balls rolling around the floor for me – hurrah!

I think he likes it!

2010-01-28T22:41:00.002Z

And, despite my customary laissez-faire attitude towards swatching, it fits. Hurrah!

Back to work

2010-01-26T20:41:00.004Z

After two long weeks off with the flu I finally went back to work today. I have been so ill and fed up that it was a relief to be able to go back, but it has really taken it out of me. I feel all wafty and pathetic so I've settled myself down to a nice relaxing evening of telly and knitting, which will be followed by a bath and an early night. After yesterday's post I surprised myself by immediately winding the skein of Cascade 220 which I had on the swift. With the application of some loud music and a bit of silly dancing round my kitchen I wound the whole thing in no time at all. I still need to find my winder though because I do like the lovely flat bottomed yarn cakes it makes, my hand wound ball has rolled off the sofa and across the floor so many times now that I've stopped bothering to pick it up.

This is the Knotty but Nice hat I linked to yesterday. I'm just starting to work the cable pattern and the chart is slightly making my eyes cross, half of the legend is over the page from the actual chart so I spent a few minutes marking each symbol in pencil so I don't need to consult the legend at all. I think I'm going to enjoy knitting this, my last couple of projects have been really simple so I'm looking forward to getting stuck into some good old cabling. My next project, I have already decided, is entirely stocking stitch so I will have something nice and simple to do when I am inevitably sick of cabling and charts. It pays to plan when you have an attention span like mine!

Today I also finally succumbed and bought Ysolda Teague's Whimsical Little Knits 2. I like a few of the patterns, but because I have so much stuff in my queue already I had been putting off buying it. However she is donating a lot of the profits from her sales this month to the Haiti appeal so I got on and bought it. I guess it was also a little treat for getting back to work. I love Ripley and Veyla in particular and can see both of them in my very near future!

Somebody stop me...

2010-01-25T17:08:00.005Z

... 2 blog entries in 2 days? Crazy talk! Given how little I actually had to say for myself yesterday I admit that I this would appear a shade overenthusiastic, but what do you know, I actually have an FO for you. Hoorah! And I'm actually pleased with it, double hoorah! Plus - yes there's more - I promised I would make this for the recipient over 3 years ago so I think I get extra back pats for finally getting off my arse and completing this.

The pattern is Turn a Square (Rav link) and was super easy and quick and is a really great pattern for a simple hat. Mark asked for a red and black hat, I decided to make the red stripes bigger than the black ones and I think that was a good choice. Hopefully he'll like it and I'll get some pics of him wearing it when I give it to him, although he'll probably be so shocked I finally turned up the goods that he won't actually care what it looks like!

So now I'm on a roll, what's next? Apart from chipping away at all the UFOs I've got hanging around I have also promised two more friends that I will make them things. In an effort not to keep them waiting three years as well I'm going to jump right in and cast on for the first of them tonight. This Knotty but Nice hat caught my eye in the latest edition of Knitty and I'm going to make it in this rather eye catching shade of yellow.

Clearly the fact that the yarn is still on the swift is a minor obstacle I need to overcome before casting on! Unfortunately I can't seem to locate my winder at present so I'm doing it by hand, hence I've spent more time photographing the yarn than I have winding it....and apparently now I'm spending even more time writing about it, so perhaps it's time I just got on with it. Well, maybe after a cup of tea eh.....

Jess - this one's for you!

2010-01-24T22:12:00.005Z

After receiving a complaint from my sister about my slack attitude to blogging, I'm going to actually try and update this occasionally. I guess that means I probably need to get on with some actual knitting and sewing too so that I have something to write about. I'm sure I could spend some time navel gazing and wondering what has caused my lack of motivation, but frankly I can't be bothered! So for the moment let's just concentrate on the things I have actually managed to make and then I'll worry about future projects another day.

Right...erm..well, I really have been crap these last few months and have almost nothing to report. A few rows here and there on this and that has pretty much added up to nothing. However, I have completed one thing and it's a goody! Ready?

Oh yes, I think I'm completely justified in wearing that smug expression - who doesn't want to look that cool! By way of an explanation, this was a commission, meant as part of a chili pepper costume for a fancy dress party. I actually earned myself a tenner and a very large box of chocolates for my troubles so I guess they must have liked it. I roughly followed this pattern, but obviously deviated from the plan towards the top, I can't remember exactly the mods I made but I think I detailed them on my Ravelry project page, should anyone else in the world actually want one of these for themselves. There has been talk of me producing a whole range of veg related balaclavas. Just to be clear, this will never happen!

Unfortunately that is pretty much it, my sewing machine has been buried under a load of stuff since I moved, but I am absolutely itching to make a load of stuff so I will hopefully go digging this week and sort that out. Perhaps I'll even complete something and then I'll have something to write about next time.

I know, I know...

2009-09-16T19:10:00.002+01:00

It has been a while and I have no real excuse except for being a bit busy. I have got a couple of things finished and I still want to chat about the books and magazines I have bought recently but I have just found out that I am moving in a week and a half (OMG!) so it's all hands to the pumps for the next few days. Obviously it wasn't a total surprise as I did choose to move, but I didn't expect things to go so fast. The place I am moving to is a teeny weeny little flat just for moi and I am currently freaking out about/looking forward to the challenge of utilising the space I have so that I can fit all of my crap in. I hate moving but I am really excited. Yay!

UFO’s!!!!!!!!

2009-08-28T11:04:00.003+01:00

I have finally got back into the swing of things now that the weather has cooled down a bit, but unfortunately the more agreeable temperatures have brought with them a serious case of startitis. I have so much stuff on the go at the moment I can barely keep up.

This is a Marie skirt for Jessie. I got this far but I want to measure it on her before I go any further and she is on holiday, bummer. So that went on one side and I got on with this

The asymmetric top from Burda World of Fashion 07/09 I have done all the main seams but I didn't have any inclination to cut bias tape so I'm waiting til I can buy some from a shop. Lazy? Yep. So I moved on again.

These are all the bits for a Maryy from Burda Style. I'm planning on making three of these so I'm pleased I have made a start. Why three? Well one is for Jessie, but that will be the last of the three. I'm also making one for me in a really lovely silver grey jacquard with a hearts pattern for a wedding next week and before that I want to make another one for me in some striped seersucker which will act as a bit of a muslin for the smart one for the wedding. I really need to be sure that the dress will flatter me before I go out and buy shoes to match!

I also still have a whole heap of unfinished knitting projects, same old, same old. Brights 2 is moving along at a reasonable pace, it's starting to look like a cardigan now

My first Kai Mei is currently waiting patiently with it's heel all turned waiting for me to remember where I put my stitch markers so I can get on with the foot . I know I could just use little scraps of yarn, but I flipping well bought little stitch markers for sock knitting so I'm flipping well going to use them!

I also have received a new book of patterns and a copy of Knitscene so I'm itching to start yet more stuff. I would tell you exactly what all my faves are but I'm afraid I won't be able to hold myself back from starting something new if I think about all those lovely patterns right now, so I'll save that for my next post!

Tunic Dress

2009-08-23T13:16:00.003+01:00

I finally completed the tunic dress yesterday and what do you know it wasn't a total disaster in the end. It has it's little 'issues' but overall appears to be wearable and Jess likes it, so hurrah! It's a little loose in places and a the hem looks rubbish but given how wrong it went I think we can just be grateful it actually looks like a dress! I will be making the pattern again (correctly!) because it is really nice.

It is actually really nice to have something to write about because it has been so hot here for the last couple of weeks that I haven't really got on with anything. I do hate complaining about the heat because it seems so stereotypically British but the weather has been really sticky and close. So once the temperature dropped just a little bit the other day I was able to pick up where I left off and finish Jessie's dress and also get on with Brights 2 which we last saw with an unwanted row of eyelets. As always, when I finally got on with it that problem was easily sorted and I couldn't work out why I had left it so long! I have now finished the increasing for the sleeves and now I'm making a charge for the neckline. when I actually get on with this it is a really quick knit and I can't wait to have it done.

That's pretty much it today, I ordered the latest copies of Interweave Knits and Knitscene a couple of days ago and also Kim Hargreaves Amber so I'm sure I'll have plenty of things to say when they arrive....and of course a complete rethink of my knitting queue!

Plan B is go

2009-08-03T15:15:00.001+01:00

Well, I'm pleased to announce that the tunic dress is indeed salvageable and looks like it will fit Jessie very nicely with a few tweaks. Left as it is it fits almost everywhere apart from around the arms. This is obviously because the yokes are way too little to be doing without their seam allowances, thank you very much! At first I thought I would just whip off the yokes and cut new ones, but when I remembered that I had already sewn in the zip very securely I began casting around for other ideas. So, hopefully I can continue on as if nothing was wrong whilst being very stingy with seam allowance and then I should be able to bridge the gap between the shoulder seams, either with self fabric inserts or perhaps just little ribbons. I really hope it all comes together because I'm totally onto a winner if this works out. Now I just have to tell the cats. They seem to have decided that all must be lost and have already made a claim to this dress. No matter where I put it down, I turn round and there is a cat sitting on it. Without fail. Someone hand me the sticky tape, I'm off to de-fluff the flipping thing again.

One down....

2009-08-02T19:09:00.003+01:00

I'm very pleased, I actually have completed one of my 'things for Jessie to take to Uni' projects. To be fair it is just a bag, but ticking things off is always fun. I won't bother taking pictures because it is practically identical to this one, except I have sewn a button and loop on as a fastener this time. I'm going to pop round and see her tonight and get her try on the tunic dress and then I can tick another one half off. Oh yes, about that, I went back and looked at the instructions and it turns out that I must have hallucinated the bit that said seam allowance was included. It wasn't. Oops. Seam allowances 2: Me 0.

Anyhow, this is just a self congratulatory quickie, my brother is arriving home from Manchester soon, hopefully for good so I'm gonna go see him shortly. We will all be glad to see him back, but it's hard not to see the irony. My parents were finally on the home straight to an empty nest with Jess off to uni and now Sam is coming back. Hee hee!

Plans

2009-07-30T11:46:00.003+01:00

I had a really nice night on Tuesday, my little sis came round and we spent the night choosing patterns and ordering fabric so I can make her some clothes before she goes off to University. Although it was apparent that she has inherited the same thrifty gene that I have and therefore mostly picked fabric from the fabric pile, I did still manage to order quite a lot of new stuff. A massive box duly arrived this morning, packed to the brim with goodies. Thanks efabrics!

So what will I be making? Another Marie, but this time in an altogether more Autumnal grey corduroy, yet another Estelle bag in the leftover cushion material that never ends, a modified one of these in black satin, a dress sort of like this in grey cotton and a tunic dress in black just like the one I have been making for me… or possibly the actual one I have been making for me because at the moment it's not going to fit me. At all. I am very well aware that this is because I stated that it most certainly wasn't going to be too small. I was concerned it might be a little large, but it couldn't possibly end up too small. Guess what. It's too small, but only in one place! Basically the bottom hemline is way too narrow and although it does fit I won't be able to get it on once I have sewn the shoulders because I need to step through the top. However, while I am feeling the sting of hubris at work, I am aware that there are many options and I will keep sewing. Plan A is to get Jessie to try it on, if it fits her then happy days, job done and I can start another one for me once all her stuff is done. If it doesn't fit her then there's Plan B, I still keep going and either make a split up the back or one at each side allowing me to pull the dress over my bum, which I currently cannot do. I think this might look a bit strange so my Plan C is to shorten the whole thing into a top which should be fine because the top half is actually quite loose. Luckily it looks like will be able to try plan A and if it doesn't work I can move on to plan B etc. As long as I try them all in the right order I have at least 3 chances to sort this out before I hit plan D. Plan D involves jumping up and down on the garment and then putting it on the window sill for the cat to sleep on. That way at least someone wins!

So, in the interest of equality I also have a knitting snafu dilemma as well. As I started increasing for the sleeves on Brights 2 I started wondering if it was going to matter if my eyelets didn't quite match up due to the increased stitches. Obviously I subconsciously decided I'd better find out sooner rather than later because I have added a row of eyelets about 5 rows too soon.

That last row of eyelets – the ones that are staring me in the face and mocking me – that should be a row of ribbing and the row that I have got to, that should be a row of eyelets. Yep, it took me that long to notice. Now I need to decide if I can live with it or if I'm going to rip back. Ripping back will involve me having to work out where I got to with the increases which is a pain but living with it may drive me mad. I've tried telling myself it is on the back so at least I won't see it, but I'll just imagine that everyone is staring at my back wondering how I could wear such a shonky garment – aargh! I think I'll let it rest for a few days while I try to forgive it for being wrong and then I'll deal with it.

Grumble

2009-07-28T10:46:00.003+01:00

After being unceremoniously turfed out of my sewing room (again) I have spent the last couple of days relocating my bits and bobs into the living room and trying to set everything up in a way that is workable for me but isn't totally in the way. I have tucked myself into a little corner, quite neatly I think, but I can't really do much until I get a lamp that will fit in the corner with me. I did sit down on Sunday and attempt to get on with my tunic dress, but I made a total dogs dinner of sewing the yoke on to the front – again - and then found I couldn't see a flaming thing when I tried to unpick it. I will try and crack on again tonight, but if I go blind in the process you are more than welcome to say I told you so!

So does this mean I have got loads of knitting done instead? Of course not, that would be too easy! I am just about to start increasing for the arms on Brights 2, which sounds impressive but really isn't because the arms pretty much sprout from the waistband on this one. Unfortunately there have been distractions the last few days. Obviously sorting out the sewing corner has been one, especially as it all involved a trip to Ikea to find a smaller table and some drawer to hide all my fabric in. We've also been totally needing a new mattress for ages so most of yesterday evening was spent trailing round shops self-consciously lying on beds and trying to avoid the gaze of overzealous sales people who feel that they need to explain that you need to lie on a bed to test it. Really?!? Oh and then there is Secret Agent Clank. Yes, once again all my creativity is thwarted by video games! I'm a total sucker for a platform game, throw in a cute robot and I'm doomed until I either finish the game, get stuck or grow an extra pair of hands so that I can knit and fight robotic ninja assassins at the same time. Maybe I'll get working on that one, I could make a fortune!

And yes, that is a cat bum hanging out of my chair in the pic at the top. 5 minutes that chair was there before Pootle claimed it!

It’s good, but it’s (probably) not right

2009-07-24T11:53:00.003+01:00

Progress was made last night with my tunic dress and I can see it taking shape now, which always spurs me on. If I wasn't looking forward to it so much I'd be a bit gutted that I'm off out tonight so I won't be able to do any more until Saturday! So , last night I finished up the gathering which for some reason I always dread but is never actually a problem and then sewed the back pieces to the front piece just leaving one open seam at the back. After cursorily wrapping it round myself and holding it together at the back moment I'm quite confident that it will not turn out too small. I then went to attach then bias binding to the underarms and was a little confused that it did not reach the whole way round. Had I made super massive armholes? A quick check of the pattern revealed that I had cut the binding for the wrong pattern and that actually they should have been about 7 cm longer. Oops! So I quickly re-cut those and cracked on. At this point the instructions were not written in a way that made any sense to me whatsoever and I'm pretty sure that I have done this bit at least slightly wrong, but it looks neat and tidy don't you think?

And that's pretty much the stage I am at now. I did pin the front yoke on and have a go at sewing that on, but I didn't do it all that neatly and I ran out of bobbin thread halfway across so I gave up for the night. Roll on Saturday. Like I said, I am going out tonight, I'm having a night on the town with my old work colleagues from when I used to work at Medway Council. We periodically have a big old night out and it invariably gets a little messy, so I may be over the limit for operating a sewing machine until at least tomorrow afternoon! Maybe a spot of light knitting will be in order tomorrow morning instead! I have made sure the fridge is stocked with all the ingredients for a nice Full English for the morning. How's that for preparation. Right, now if only I can arrange for it to stop raining…..

Photo update

2009-07-22T16:29:00.005+01:00

I went to see the new Harry Potter film last night, so I haven't made much progress on any of my projects but I thought I had better stick some pictures on here just so that we can see where I have got to with everything.

This is my tunic dress which I started a few days ago. Clearly it is still a bunch of bits, but I have overcast all of the edges and sewn the basting for the gathering. I would really like to have this done for the weekend so I'm going to have to work really hard on it tonight and tomorrow night.

This is the beginning of Brights 2. Not much to show here but the pattern is really easy. I like how it is mostly stocking stitch but has single ribbed rows and an eyelet row thrown in just often enough to keep you on your toes.

Here is the first few inches of my charades

And here is where I have got to with my Kai-Mai's

And with regards to the Harry Potter film…. as usual, disappointing. I do know that the films can't contain all that is in the book and that's fine and usually with a second watch I can enjoy them better because I know what is left out etc, but when they add bits in (i.e make them up!!!!!) it doesn't half annoy me. Why, when you have to miss bit of the book out, important bits to my mind, would you add bits in that are nothing to do with the book? Why?????? There's some really nice knitwear it in though. Rant over.