Boredom

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.

Catch up

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

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

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

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!