Phones, smarter than me.

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?

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

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?

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?

1.  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.)
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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!
5. 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.
6. That cats wearing clothes is a total winner!
7. 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

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

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.....

 

  

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!