OAL 2016 Update

I've barely mentioned the Outfit Along recently and, I won't leave you in suspense, that is because I've been making very slow progress!  Because I'm starting to fear that I might not finish by the deadline I figured I may as well do an update now in case it's a while before I get to do an FO post.

Given that I completed 2 outfits last year I'm feeling a bit perplexed that I'm struggling to complete just one this year.  So what's the hold up?  Firstly is the yarn, I've gone for a 4 ply this time around so while I blasted out a Miette cardi in worsted weight yarn in just over a week last year, progress has been understandably slower this year.  The cable ribbing in particular took for-actual-ever to complete and there was a point where I thought I'd be knitting that bit for the rest of my life!  Once I got past that point the rest of the body went fairly quickly and I started to think that I was home free.  And then....(this is where the excuses start)... I got sick, it got hot, I got super busy and time just slipped away. Of course, in between everything else I also have to work in the evenings (coolest part of the day) so there's that too.

Ordinarily feeling ill would be a nice excuse to sit on the sofa and knit, but I've had this horrible cough and cold that has just taken it out of me, its been a really busy time too so I've just been exhausted.  Of course as soon as I started to feel better then it got really hot and sticky, not ideal knitting conditions for a sweaty betty like me.  Over the last few days I have managed to find some cooler moments in which to knit.  I was pretty happy when I knocked out a sleeve in an afternoon only to realise as I was reading the directions again for the second sleeve that I'd started the decreases too soon and I need to knit it again.  Ugh.  So at this point I have nearly completed the first sleeve for the second time and I'm praying for some cooler weather as the deadline approaches.

Hopefully soon I'll have a finished one a bit like this!

Just in case I seem like I'm complaining too much, I will say that the things I have been busy with have all been really nice and I've had a lovely few weeks.  Cassie has been on several visits to her new school and it's been lovely to see her become excited about starting in September.  I'm finding it hard to accept that she is old enough for school but she is so so ready and I know she is going to love it.  Lissy has been for a couple of visits to her new preschool and she is also really excited to start.  We were all a little worried because she can be very reserved in social situations but she just had the best time.

Cassie also had her preschool graduation which took place at their summer fete so there were loads of people there to watch.  The kids all did a little performance to 'We will Rock You' and Cassie KILLED it.  She was playing air guitar and headbanging for all she was worth, it was epic.  And now I have her home all day, every day until September, I'm undecided on whether this is a good thing or not!

So that's it for my little update, I hope everyone is enjoying the summer and getting at least a little knitting done.  With any luck I'll be back on Sunday with a finished cardi to show off, but perhaps not.  Wish me luck!

FO: Commuter Mitts

I know I've mentioned it before but my Sister-in-Law is completely knitworthy.  As well as being generally awesome she always sends me pictures of my knits in use and often posts photos proudly on Facebook for all to see.  While I don't knit for appreciation and accept that I mostly hand my hard work over for it to never be heard of again, I do love getting little updates like that.  So, when Rachael asked if I'd be able to make her some gloves to keep her hands warm while she is pushing her pram I was only too happy to say yes.

About 3 years ago I made a pair of Dashing mitts for my brother and, as he was refusing to lend them to his wife in case she stole them permanently, I thought I'd make her a pair of her own.  Those of you who are familiar with that pattern will recognise that the mitts above are not all that Dashing at all.  My row gauge, which I'll admit I never measure, must have been way off because by the time I got to the thumb it was clear that they were nearly elbow length.  Not necessarily a problem, but it's April and not really elbow length glove weather.  So I ripped those back, stuck with Knitty and cast on a pair of Commuter Mitts by Stephanie Sun instead.

I've also knit these before, a couple of years ago for my sister (who is ably modelling this pair for me, thanks Jess).  I really like the way they look and  being able to undo the cuff and button it over the fingers is a nice touch.  I didn't bother with the little buttons on the underside with the last pair I made because Jess didn't think she'd actually bother ever using them, but I thought Rachel might really find them useful so I stitched on a pair of tiny hidden apples for her.

All in all, I'm really pleased with these.  They were a quick knit and economical too, made using some Cascade Hollywood leftover from Lissy's Abate sweater.  Rachael seems happy as well, a Facebook post praising their sparkly purpleness and hidden apples appeared with gratifying haste, cementing her status as one of my favourite people to knit for.

Soooo sparkly!

FO: Effervesce

Wow, so Ravelry is telling me that the last time I completed a full sized pair of adult socks was in 2012!  I've always loved knitting socks, but for some reason I haven't really been feeling it for a while.  I didn't realise that we were taking quite that long though!  Of course I haven't stopped buying sock yarn in all that time so hopefully my sock mojo is here to stay and I can start working my way through some of it!

What's to say then?  This pattern (Effervesce by Purrlescent) was just the ticket to get me going on socks again.  I was looking for something a little intricate but not requiring every ounce of my concentration.  These little cables were pretty intuitive and a quick glance at the chart at the begining of each round was all that was necessary.  I love the effect of the cables as they dwindle down to nothing just before my big toes.  So pretty and because the socks mirror each other each sock is a little different which makes knitting the second sock a little less tedious if you suffer from second sock syndrome!

I went for the middle size as some of my handknitted socks have come up a little snug in the past, but these are nice and stretchy and I could probably have got away with the smallest size.  The foot chart, however, was exactly the right length for my foot and I didn't need to add any rows before starting the toe.  The yarn is John Arbon's Exmoor Blueface which I bought a couple of years back.  I bought 2 skeins, the first in Navy to send to a Ravelry friend in a swap and the peacock for me.  It feels really nice on my feet and I'm still loving the colour I chose.  It's slightly fuzzy so the cables aren't quite as crisp as they could be, but who cares.

I'm definitely fully back on the sock bandwagon and I'm itching to knit my next pair but I promised Lissy a sweater so I'm going to try and bust that out as fast as I can so I can get back to my socks.

What's in Progress?

After my recent whine about my difficulties getting a new knitting project on the go, it seemed only polite to let you know what I'd actually ended up working on.  I was too busy trying not to name names when it came to the patterns that had frustrated me that I stayed tight lipped about what had finally broken me out of my funk!

After all that melodrama I finally ended up knitting Effervesce by Purrlescent.  These socks have exactly the look I was going for with tiny little travelling cables.  They look really intricate and complicated but really they are dead simple and are knitting up really fast.  I cast on on 22nd January and I've just turned the heel down on the second sock less than 3 weeks later.  While I'm aware that's not super fast, I have socks on the needles which I cast on in December 2012.......

These socks never have you crossing more than one stitch over the next so by cabling without a cable needle I'm finding that I'm not being slowed down too much.  The only issue I've had is that I decided to use magic loop (I'm ordinarily a DPN type of girl) and I've been through 3 sets of needles before I found some where the bump in the join wasn't driving me bonkers.

I'm hoping to have these done in a week or so and then the plan is to knit Lissy a sweater. I'm kind of feeling sock fever kicking back in though so she'll have to behave herself if she doesn't want to go back in the queue!

FO: Knotted Pine

Ok, I'm not even slightly going to beat around the bush on this one, I freaking love this hat and I think I may actually just live in it from now on.  I love the central cable panel and the way it is surrounded by more cables and a cute rib column.  The short row shaping on the brim is completely delightful and I'm even rather enamoured by the half twisted stockinette which adds a lovely texture even though twisted stitches are kind of annoying to knit.

The pattern is Knotted Pine by Alicia Plummer, a designer who has multiple patterns in my Ravelry library and favourites but this is the first one I've actually knit up.  A few knitters had remarked in their project notes that they found the pattern hard to follow, but I can safely say that I had no trouble whatsoever.  The pattern is very brief and to the point but all the pertinent information is there.  I used KnitCompanion, as I usually do, and really I should have stitched the charts together on there instead of flicking between them but I'll leave that for next time.

I actually cast on for this for the first time when I was on holiday in December, but I'd forgotten my smaller needles and then I got lost on the charts and decided it was best to rip out and try again at home.  Luckily I did because it turns out that my gauge swatch had been telling me some whopping great fibs.  According to my swatch I needed to go up a needle size, so that's what I did and after dithering about what size to choose I went for 22" because that's how big my head is.  It was quite clear before I even finished the ribbing that the thing was going to be massive so I went back down to the suggested needle size and changed to the 20" size.  It fits really nicely now so I definitely did the right thing.

The yarn is Lang Yak, which was sent to me from Switzerland during a recent swap, and I'm a big fan now.  It's really smooth and warm and the colour is lovely.  I haven't washed it yet because I was so desperate to get this hat on my head, but apparently it gets even lovelier after a wash.  I only used a little more than one ball so I have the larger part of the second ball left to make a hat for a small person.  Hmm, now which pattern to choose.....

FO: Driftwood

This one has been a little while in the making but finally I have finished!

Honestly I have no real reason for why this took so long for me to complete.  I bashed out the body in next to no time but I think I just got really really bored during the sleeves.  I vaguely remember putting it aside to get on with a little bit of my mosaic blanket and then never really gave it another thought.  After that got bogged down with Christmas knitting, baby knitting and a KAL while poor old Driftwood hibernated behind the sofa.  However after finishing my Hetty I'd rather got the selfish knitting bug and was tempted to cast on another sweater for myself until I remembered I'd got a nearly completed one mere inches from where I was sitting.

I'll confess that I nearly shoved it back being the sofa again a few times, for some reason I really hated knitting those sleeves but it seemed silly to put it off any longer.  The sleeves did turn out really long so I could have stopped knitting them a bit sooner, but it is quite nice to hide my hands up inside them.

Now anyone who is familiar with the pattern may notice that mine looks a little different from others they may have seen.  While I was knitting the body and the sleeves I did think that the button band in the pattern photos seemed to come a lot further down her body than mine did.  I didn't give it much thought until it came to picking up the stitches for the button bands and I realised that I was going to have a devil of a job picking up the required 42 stitches.  Casting an eye over the pattern I spotted a tiny little sentence between separating the body and sleeves and joining to knit in the round which instructs you to continue knitting flat for a further 12cm.  I can sort of see how I missed it, but I'm still kicking myself a bit for it.

I don't really mind the way it looks though, it's unique I guess!  Other than that this sweater is really comfy and I like it a lot.  The yarn is Rowan Calmer, a cotton and acrylic mix, which means that this should be good to wear most of the year round.  I've worked with it a couple of times before and it's funny stuff because it is really stretchy so you do have to be careful not to pull it too much as you knit.  It gives the resulting garment a nice stretch and is part of the reason this sweater is so comfortable.  So all in all this is another win.  I still haven't quite scratched that selfish knitting itch and next on my agenda is a Knotted Pine hat using the lovely yak yarn that I got in a swap earlier this year.

Pattern: Driftwood by Isabell Kraemer

WIP: Driftwood

Don't mind me, just hanging out in my half knitted jumper!

I’ve been charging along on my Driftwood and I’ve now been able to try it on and see how I like it.  Obviously the addition of sleeves and the neck band will make a world of difference but it’s looking ok so far don’t you think?  This has been a really quick and easy knit so far and it’s been nice to see it growing before my eyes, not like those knits that seem to just not get any bigger no matter how much time you put in.  I always think that stripes help with that, especially where plain stockinette is involved because each stripe is a milestone that helps you see you’re making progress.

So that's that.  I'll be putting this aside for a few days to do a bit of test knitting and to put a few rows in on a very secret blanket project I'm working on.  In non project news, Cassie started preschool yesterday.  Safe to say it was a resounding success and she's very happy to be going back today.  When we first arrived there she suddenly lost her nerve and I thought she might not want me to go, but as soon as she say the table with the play dough on she was off and didn't look back.  I was really pleased how easy it was but pretty sad that she didn't even say goodbye.  Then I had to deal with a Felicity fit because she was upset that she didn't also get to stay and play with the play dough!  When we went back to get Cassie she actually burst into very loud tears when she saw me because she didn't want to go home with boring old mummy.  Oh well.

My big beautiful girl :)

What's in Progress?

After finishing my Nathalie cardigan and my 70s dress I was still in selfish mode and started two more projects just for me.  Once they are done I have promised Cassie that I will make her something, but I'll make it a quick one so that I can get on with more things for meeee!

Driftwood has been in my queue for ages, it's right up my alley and definitely qualifies as a wardrobe essential that will get loads of wear.  I'd been giving a lot of thought to yarn and colour combos and never actually made a decision so I'd put off making it.  Its was only when I was looking at my UFOs and my stash that I had a flash of inspiration and decided to rip out an old project and combine that yarn with some of the same yarn in another colour from the stash.

The UFO, Brights 2 from Rowan Studio 9, was started in 2009, picked up again briefly in 2010 after I had a little push to deal with my longest suffering UFOs and has languished in this state ever since.

Please note that the only thing in the post I linked above that ever got finished were my alpaca socks and they fell victim to Stu and the washing machine not long after they were finished.  Clearly I had no real desire to finish the thing so it was definitely time to rip it out and put the yarn to good use.  I had a load of black Rowan Calmer sitting in the stash waiting to be a bolero cardigan that I was only half convinced that I actually like so it seemed like a good idea to combine the two and knit some thing I'd actually, well, knit.

Sewing-wise I'm currently sewing up New Look 6262 in some lovely bird and butterfly print viscose. I'm just about to stick the zip in and then its just sleeves, neckline and hem left to do.  If this turns out nicely then I can see me making a few versions of this dress in the future.  It's really simple, but has a few different options to mix and match and make each one a little different.  There was another project that I finished before that, but Stu referred to that garment as abomination and he is almost certainly correct so I'm avoiding photographing it for the moment.  But I will share it soon, when you're least expecting it, BAM there it will be in all its day-glo glory.  Betcha can't wait!

FO: Nathalie

I bet you thought I'd forgotten about this one! After failing to finish it before the start of the Outfit Along I ended up putting it aside for the duration and only picked it up again a few days ago. In the past I've put projects aside only to go back to them and find that I have absolutely no idea where I've got to and what to do next but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I'd made it very clear where I'd got to on this one. I was knitting the sleeves two at a time and I'd got about half way so I didn't have much left to do at all.

After that there was just a bit of seaming to do. The main body is all knit in one piece but the sleeves are knit flat so they need to be seamed after they're set in. The shoulders also needed seaming as well as the centre of the collar before it is sewn down at the back of the neck. All in all, fairly painless although still a little more seaming than I like to do!

Once I'd finished and popped it on I wasn't entirely sure I liked it but the next morning I gave it a quick steam blocking and wore it to work. Every time I saw myself in the mirror I found I liked it a bit more and but lunchtime I'd pretty much decided that it was my favourite cardigan in the world. It's the perfect level of slouchy without constantly falling off because the arms fit nicely. The colour is pretty neutral but not boring, the cotton and linen mix gives the yarn a sheen which is almost silvery and really lovely. It also makes it a great summer cover up if you live in the land of unpredictable weather like me.

I've mentioned the pattern before, being a DROPS pattern it was basically a scary looking wall of text and it was well worth taking the time to write it out in a simpler format that I could follow. There was nothing difficult in the pattern but the format is difficult to work from so I would definitely recommend rewriting it in sections. I know some people avoid DROPS patterns because they're difficult but really they're just presented awkwardly and they have loads of patterns that I like the look of. Here is my DROPS bundle in my Ravelry faves if you're at all interested. Next up though is a completely DROPS free zone, a Driftwood sweater in Rowan Calmer.

Pattern: DROPS 146-1 "Nathalie"

Yarn: DROPS Bomull Lin - 53% cotton 47% linen in grey blue

 

OAL 2015. Plan B.

Although I was a little disappointed that my first intended OAL outfit didn't work out I didn't despair for long.  Far from having no outfit, what I actually had was 50% of 2 outfits, I just needed to decide on what to pair with each of them.  Of course I wanted to avoid any more dud outfits so I thought a little bit  carefully about what would go together this time.

When working out my original pairing my only real focus was whether the yarn and the fabric would go together, I didn't really consider whether things like how the necklines would look together, which obviously turned out to be a mistake.  To avoid this again I put on my dress and tried it on with some cardigans out of my wardrobe and now I know that I will be much better off knitting a cardigan a v-neck.  As luck would have it the Vianne by Andi Satterlund that I had already started to knit has a v-neck.  I'm making it in this rather fetching/completely horrible (delete as applicable!) shade of yellow which I think will look pretty good with the pale blue chambray.  Progress on this cardigan had been slow due to the fact that I have now ripped in back 8 times.  8 times!  I'm sure that's some kind of record, I would usually have given up and started something else by now but I will be persevering because there is really no good reason why this keeps happening.  The pattern isn't difficult, I think it's just that with all the lacy bits it's not so easy to just fudge when I make a tiny mistake and during the early stages it's easier to just rip back and start again than fiddle about trying to fix it.

I was initially a bit stumped as to what I was going to sew to go with my Miette.  Because that lovely forest green is not a colour I really wear (until now, seriously, I loves it) I didn't have much in the way of fabric I thought matched it nicely.  So I put it on the back burner and got on with cutting out the bits for a Lady Skater with some plain black jersey.  Realising that my cardigan looked perfectly nice with a black vest top and jeans I figured that fate may have stepped in and provided me with an answer.  Once I'd sewn up the shoulders and added the neckband I popped the bodice onto Headless Hannah, did up the cardigan over the top and bingo!

Not bad eh?  So that's the plan!

FO: Miette

Element one of my first OAL outfit is done and I love it, hooray!

Obviously I got a head start on it by being stuck in a caravan in the rain for several days, but this was a really quick knit anyway. I would happily knit another, possibly omitting the eyelets for an even quicker, more mindless knit.

I'm really pleased with the way this fits, it looks nice buttoned and unbuttoned. The only thing I might fiddle with next time is sleeve length, these are a bit neither here nor there on me. I could also do with slightly moving the buttons because the lace on each side doesn't quite line up. I'm far too lazy to actually do that though so it won't happen unless any of the buttons fall off.

The yarn, as well as possibly being my new favourite colour, is actually really lovely considering it's only 80p a ball. That's not even a sale price either! I used 9 balls (although I barely broke into the 9th) so this cardigan cost all of £7 in yarn. Nice and soft and smooth and not too splitty and with a nice range of colours I'll be using it again for sure.

So that's that. OAL element two just needs hemming, but SPOILER ALERT there will be an element 2.5... More on that soon.

Blue Steel! WTF?

Pattern: Miette by Andi Satterlund

Yarn: DROPS Love You 5

 

FO: Nymphalidea

I don't knit a lot of shawls because they take forever to knit and it's not worth it because I'll never wear them. Or so I tell myself every time I stick one in my queue. "Hmm, pretty" says my brain," but you know you'll never knit it". Well, take that brain, one shawl done in just over a week and it's super dooper wearable. Ha.

I know I mentioned in my last post that this was a very simple and compelling knit and that held true right til the end. I was even considering throwing in a few more repeats, just for fun (well mainly because I had a bit of yarn left really) but I have lots of projects that I'm itching to start so I didn't. I'll totally knit this again some day and I will probably make that one a bit longer and follow the instructions to make the top edge a little straighter from the extra pattern PDF that I, typically, didn't discover until I'd nearly finished. The blocking instructions are on the same PDF so I vaguely followed those. I could have got the top a little straighter, but I'm lazy and I'll mostly wear this like a scarf so no one will ever know.

Anyways, there's not much for me to add here. I loved knitting this and I love the finished item, it's so bright and cheerful how could I not?

Pattern: Nymphalidea by Melinda VerMeer

Despite having loads of projects I want to crack on with I have actually had a bit of trouble deciding what to cast on next. Really I should be getting on with my first Christmas knit, which was due on 28th Feb. I'd procrastinated about yarn for ages and kept changing my mind but I think I've settled on something from my stash now, so I will start that soon. I considered starting another shawl, Stratigraphy again by Melinda VerMeer, but unlike Nymphalidea that starts with casting on a buttload of stitches and I wasn't really in the mood for really long rows so I actually picked up my Greenwich socks instead and knit on them while I did some more procrastinating. And now I've finally finished the first one. It's only taken me since June! I wonder how long the second one will take?

 

Brightening things up a bit

Much as I generally love winter the weather here can currently be described in no other way than 'grey'. Although dreary and drab wouldn't be unfair descriptions either. So when picking new knitting and spinning projects I was clearly looking for something to provide my eyeballs with a bit of a pick me up. From my box of ready to go knitting projects I picked this bag

And from my big bag of fibre

I picked this

The pattern I had matched up with the yarn was Nymphalidea and I'm really chuffed with my choice. The rainbowy goodness of the Drops Delight is set off really nicely by the black stripes. The black yarn is some random Rowan 4-ply I bought on a cone from eBay years ago and I'm really glad to be finally using some of it. The pattern itself is really fun and the little sections make it seem like it is growing really fast. The short rows in it really help as no matter how long the rows get 4 out of 12 rows are 22 stitches or shorter, which is a welcome break as the rows get longer.

I haven't got quite so far with the fibre. There is 200g of South American of which I left 1/3 in white, dyed 1/3 neon pink and split the final 1/3 in half and dyed those bits orange and purple. The plan is to make a 3ply with one white strand, one pink strand and one strand with the orange and purple striping. In my mind this will be nice and bright with a subtle variation, only time will tell if it will work out that way. So far I've only spun a bit of the white, I'll spare you a photograph of that! I had a go at spinning with Cassie in the room, I figured she might be grown up enough to understand that she shouldn't touch. Five minutes later she had head butted the wheel while it was spinning, on purpose, and told me that she wanted to lick it so it went away again. My child is a nut.