Flutter-by

Sssshhhhhhh......

2009-06-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

..... this is posted in a whisper, because Owen is asleep!

Anyway, I am here to announce that about 3 weeks ago I rediscovered the will to knit. More to the point, I joined up two thoughts in a logical and coherent way and that sort of enabled me to see the root of my loss of knitting mojo.

For a while now, I have been feeling the urge to knit something, but somehow I never manage to actually make a decision about what I want to make or what part of my extensive yarn collection would be best for it.

The dilemmas involved are enourmous - do I knit for the baby, only to have to make it in acrylic and have him grow out of it in 10 days? Do I knit something for me only to have him puke on in after 10 minutes, and then not get round to washing it for 6 weeks because it is handwash? Do I knit another scarf/shawl knowing full well that I'll not wear it for months because the summer is finally here? Which of the thousands of ideas for jumper designs I have floating round in my head is the best one? Why don't I do something useful and finish one of the many things I am half way through?

It was all too much thinking about knitting, feeling oppressed by the stash and my lack of time and will to knit it, and not enough sponteneity and fun.

And then I was struck by the aforementioned coherent thoughts. The first one said - you are having trouble stringing thoughts together, so stop thinking about designing something and just knit from a pattern with no modifications. The second thought was - stop bleating about not having enough time (while spending a good chunk of every morning on the internet) and use the time you do have to cast something on.

Then I saw the perfect project - simple, quick, useful, a couple of yarn options in the stash. It was the Whisper Cardigan from Interweave Spring. I saw the pictures and liked it. I swatched in laceweight and didn't like it (far too open) so went to sockweight and liked it a whole lot more, but then what is there not to like about Posh Yarn Laura!

Anyway, that little bit of inspiration was all I needed to start the knitting, it went surprisingly fast and now Whisper is blocking upstairs and I am praying that it is going to be dry by tomorrow so that I can wear it. Photos will follow soon, just as soon as I can commandeer Francis and the camera and a spare 5 minutes, but I am dead chuffed to have finished something, and am casting round for ideas for my next project.....

Finally........

2009-03-01T02:48:00.003-08:00

.... this has taken a lot of effort and perseverence, but I have finally finished casting off!

This is my Laminaria, which I started 7 weeks ago when I was trying desperatly to fill the time waiting for Owen to appear. To begin with it all went really quickly, and by the time I was out of hospital I had done all the first chart, and was on with the blossom chart. I decided to chuck in a couple of extra repeats of that. In retrospect I might not have done that, seeing how long it has taken me to do the border. By the end it was at least 30 minutes a row, and I could only really do it when someone else was here incase Owen woke up in the middle of something complicated. And the cast off was looooooong.

But it's a lovely pattern, the yarn (Posh Yarn Eva Laceweight) is fantastic and I really really want to wear it. Plus I feel pleased that having a baby hasn't totally interrupted my ability to knit complicated lacy things. That said, my next project is going to be in thicker yarn and considerably smaller and easier to see progress.

It'll be blocked this evening, and ready for wearing next week.

Latest Finished Object....

2009-01-26T04:13:00.001-08:00

This one has been a long time in the WIP pile ........ he arrived on Tuesday 20th January, at 21.10 in the evening, was hard work but worth it.

That'll be my new boy - Owen. One two three, Ahhhhh (and yes, he has a lot of hair).

He's got his Francis charmed, and I knit him a jumper.......

Pattern - my own, basic raglan cardigan, one row stripes, moss stitch button bands and collar, random assortment of buttons from my collection.

Size - 0 - 3 months (from a Debbie Bliss pattern), a bit big for now - he'll grow into it! 7" to underarm, 5.5" sleeve length, 9.5" total length, 19" round the chest.

Yarn - oops, didn't keep the ball bands, but acrylic/wool blend machine washable sportweight/dk. 1 ball in green and one in off white.

Gauge - 6.5 stitches and 8 rows per inch.

Comments - it's a good thing it's washable. Not the nicest softest wool ever, but practical and cheap and available in the shop in Inverness. There seems to be a lack of nice wool that is washable on the market, but I did go shopping in some of the internet sales and have bought some of various blends which I am going to be trying out. When I am a bit better organised, I'll get a cone or two of machine washable wool and try dyeing my own I think - it is so much more fun working with really nice coloured stuff.

He will have matching green booties as well as soon as they are done........

Currently blocking.....

2009-01-13T08:34:00.000-08:00

First off, being 41 weeks pregnant is not conducive to having lots of knitting mojo, or staying power. I keep starting things, frogging them after about 3 rows and then having another nap (and/or some more chocolate icecream). I am no longer enjoying pregnancy, I am sore bored and very very grumpy, but nothing seems to be happening.

I have managed to finish one project off though - my Winter Cottage Mittens (apologies for the photos, but the weather here has not been conducive to taking photos outside).

This lovely pattern was designed by the Lovely Dee at Poshyarn, and the colourway is Bonfire, but being me I made a few changes.

The most important of these was the addition of a gusset on the side of the mitten so that they would go round my large hands. The fit is great above the thumb, but there was no way that I was going to get them on if they had an afterthought thumb.

Then in order to make the gusset fit above the bottom pattern, I needed to add a few rows to the bottom of the main pattern - luckily it repeats twice so I just had to copy about 10 rows over. Then in order not to end up with very long mittens, I left out 10 rows of the ribbing.

The mittens are quite snug in these photos, but I have just got round to making a template (cardboard wrapped in clingfilm, sized to fit round my hand) and they are now soaking and waiting to be dried.

They are going to be lovely and warm though - just perfect for pushing a pram round town this winter. All I need now is a baby, so if you could all think labour inducing thoughts for me that would be much appreciated.

Super secret knitting

2008-12-29T01:08:00.001-08:00

My most ambitious piece of christmas knitting was very well recieved, which was a big relief to say the least. The idea was started at the end of November, when we called in at New Lanark Mill on the way home from Sheffield. Francis was very impressed with the wool, and chose some Gritstone coloured Aranweight as his favoured colour. I was thinking of making him a cobblestone out of it, but at this point had no intention of giving it to him for chirstmas.

Then he went to shetland and came back having bought me some lovely hand dyed shetland yarn, and I started thinking silly thoughts. I swatched for a cobblestone, got the gauge first time, and then started thinking that as I had maternity leave starting I might be able to get it finished in time. So I started manically knitting on Cobblestone at every opportunity, encouraging him to go out for days in the hills to give me more knitting time. By the start of my one week's leave, I had done the body up to the armpits and started a sleeve. Between visits to the hospital/midwife and other christmas related errands, I knit and knit and knit (between 9 and 5 while he was at work) and by the Friday I had a completed jumper. The yoke seems to take forever though.............

At this point, I realised that I was going to have to block it in secret as well.... which was going to be a lot harder to achieve. I dunked it in some water (baby baths are very useful for this) and left it with some soak while I thought about it a little, deciding that there was so much clutter in the baby room that the jumper could be laid on the floor under the cot and disguised with stuff. Following a lot of rinsing (the first soak water was a very dark peaty brown) the jumper was duely laid out under the cot (this means that the blocking is by no means as good as it might have been) and left. It took forever to dry, but by the 23rd it was finally done. Phew.

It was all worth it - he likes the jumper (his first knitted gift), was totally surprised to see his yarn knitted up, and has worn it ever since........

Vital Statistics:

Pattern - Cobblestone by Jared Flood in Interweave Knits

Size - Smallest (39" chest)

Needles - 4.5mm circulars

Yarn - New Lanark Aran, in Gritstone. approx 6.5 skeins.

Comments - the yarn softens a lot on blocking, but still makes a very rugged and wooly garment. Perfect for a very warm sweater, but I wouldn't want to wear it next to the skin. The first wash produced some very dark brown water which surprised me a bit as the wool is a natural colour, but the water was running clear after about 5 rinses and no staining was left on the towel I blocked on. The pattern is great - clear and easy to execute, simple, plain and perfect for Francis. I knit it exactly as written, but if I was to make a slight modification I might make were I to knit it again would be to cast on slightly fewer stitches at the cuffs and do more increasing, but I think it fits fine as it is so I might not!

All in all I am more inspired to knit for the man in my life than I have been for a long time, and this project has left smiles all round!

3 Things

2008-12-13T08:57:00.000-08:00

There are 3 things that are making me very happy indeed.

1. I have finally finished work - maternity leave is fantastic and I am suddenly getting into the whole christmas spirit!

2. My Winter Cottage Mitten kit has arrived. I ordered the bonfire colourway, and wanted to cast on straight away, but got the yarn in a right tangle when I was winding it. My husband has now sorted that out for me and I can cast on with a clear consience because...

3. I have just finished my Coraline, and it fits. It needs blocking, but I think I might be in love, or alternatively overexcited because it is the first new item of clothing I have had in quite a few months. I have high hopes for this being an excellent transition garment in the pregnant / after birth department.

Spiral Hat

2008-11-29T09:52:00.000-08:00

Well - several christmas presents have been made and mostly dispatched! I'm 99% certain that my brother doesn't even know I have a blog, so I thought I'd show his on here even though it is well before christmas.

I asked my Husband to kindly do the modelling, when we went for a walk a couple of weeks ago, in Moniak woods, which really are very nice if you happen to be in the area.

Some statistics:

Yarn - Jamieson and Smith DK, Black, held double. For the contrast colour I used less than one ball of Kureyon, carefully selecting the portion of yarn I knit with so that I missed out the pale pink.

Needles - 4.5mm and 5mm Knitpicks

Pattern - My own. It is a very simple hat, with a bit of a rib at the bottom and then spiral stripes above. The decreases were worked offset from each other so that the spiral remained unbroken at the top.

It's a great leftovers hat, but it is quite wooly so those with sensitive foreheads might want to think about giving it some sort of lining.

The weather has taken a distinct turn since then, and much of the area now looks like this:

It's freezing down to sea level, there is some snow higher up, but the sun shone (even though it did set at 3.30) and it's nice and clear. And it's forecast to stay that way for a good while. Time to hole up with the heating up and finish the last sleeve of my Coraline.

Porom.....

2008-11-25T13:45:00.000-08:00

So, it's been a while since I have managed to co-ordinate me, a camera, someone to take a photo and some half decent weather into the same place at the same time!

But anyway, my new favourite hat is definatly porom!

Now, you'll notice that I didn't manage to co-ordinate a good hair day as well, but I'm trying not to be too picky!

Some finished object statistics:

Pattern - Porom from Brooklyntweed

Yarn - Fyberspates Scrumptious DK

Needles - 3.75 and 4.5mm Knitpicks Options

Alterations - First, because I had enough yarn, I knit 6" of pattern before starting the decreases. The hat looked ridiculous (but quite amusing if worn in the Henry VIII fashion). So I frogged and made it 5.5", but that still was a bit large, and eventually found that 5" produced an acceptable amount of slouch. I must have a very small volumed head, not that I have ever noticed before.

I love the hat though, I can wear it and it doesn't squash my hair. In a not so flattering look, it covers my ears when it is really cold. It lives in my handbag and is always available should the weather take a turn for the colder - by the time these photos had been taken I had been wearing it/ carrying it round for a good couple of years and the yarn is holding up well.

Not so instant

2008-10-12T02:47:00.000-07:00

Ok - so knitting my Porom only took me 2 days.

Getting round to blocking it took another, and then because it went all cold and wet it took 3 days to dry.

And then I found out that even though the gauge was right, I obviously have a very small head. Wearing it slouchy was just silly, though my husband put it on and then spent a very amusing evening doing Henry VIII impressions.

So I frogged it and made is shorter (by about and inch) than indicated by the pattern, and it was still a bit big. Still too big, but definatly an improvement. So I frogged it again, and made it another half an inch shorter and this time the pre-blocking tryout indicates that I might just get the right amount of slouch. At least it might look something like the picures tell me!

On the plus side, the yarn is standing up very well to frogging, considering it is a very loosely spun singe, and the pattern is dead easy to remember by the time you have already knit it twice.

Coraline is also progressing - I have added waist shaping (to give me something to measure progress as much as for aesthetic reasons) and have stopped knitting to do the sleeves. I decreased 4 stitches in a row, every 8 rows 5 times, and then increased back up to the origional stitch count.

I am about 4" down the first one, and it is going slowly. At this point I need to pause and consider if I really want to have puffy sleeves, or something a bit more shaped, and that all ties in with how I am going to finish off the bottom of the body and it is all too much of a decision.

Options are:

1 - Continue sleeves puffy, knit the bottom as in the pattern (i.e. knit some extra length and fold over, whip stitching onto the inside). Like in this great example made out of gorgeous posh yarn.

2 - Add some decreases to the sleeves, so they have a bit of ease but not that much at the bottom, so a garterstitch border to both the sleeves and body. Like the border on this...

3 - As per option 2 but doing the foldy over hem at the bottom of the sleeves and the body. Like this....

4 - Something really clever that I haven't managed to think of yet (but definatly not having 3/4 length sleeves).

All the above links are to Ravelry - if you don't have an account then get one, it's great.

I am currently leaning towards option 2, it's nice and easy, gives a good edge and will I think look better on me than having puffy sleeves.

Distractions

2008-09-20T05:49:00.000-07:00

So - Coraline is progressing well, the yoke is nearly done, but it's seeming to take a very long time to knit and I need somthing a little bit more instant as well.

Last weekend I was down in Edinburgh staying with a friend, and managed to fit in a trip to K1. This shop is small, but we a lovely selection of stuff and so of course I was tempted. They also serve tea, which is delicious (Apple loves Ginger was a total winner). A lot of what I bought is desitned to be christmas presents, but I did sneak in a skein of Scrumptious DK from Fyberspates in a lovely shade called electric blue, thinking along the lines of a hat or maybe neckwarmer for me at some point. The yarn is a very loosely spun silk/merino mix, so strokeably soft and shiny that I wound it into a ball just for the excuse of being able to fondle it a bit more.

Then when a few days later Brooklyntweed published his pattern Porom, I was totally inspired and cast on and wound the yarn.

A couple of hours later and I have already made visible progress.

I cast on using an old pair of addi turbo lace needles that I haven't used for a while, and compared to my Knitpicks the cables are so stiff. I was glad to be able to change after the first 1.5" of ribbing. I am now seriously considering a set of harmonies just to keep all my metal tips company!

Anyway, off to knit some more.....

On Making Life HARD

2008-09-16T11:52:00.001-07:00

OK, if you want to add some complications to your life take one perfectly clear, well written pattern and instead of just getting on and knitting it, decide to do it upside down. I am proceeding thus with my Coraline.

The main reason for knitting top down, is that I am really unsure if I have enough yarn. I am also a bit off on the row gauge, so want to be able to block and try on as I am going along.

In between time, I have realised that there is a fairly significant colour difference between some of my skeins. Of course I realised this when I had done the first swap, so that meant ripping out back to the start again. It was worth it in the end though....

I think I have cracked the yoke now though - and if anyone else is thinking about doing this here are some notes on what I have done.....

Cast on - I used the cast on described for the sleeves for the top of the neck. The pattern tells you how many stitches are left before the cast off, and I picked up 6 fewer than this along the I-cord, with the 3 stitches of the I-cord at each end making up the rest. The result is nice and neat and clean!

Smock 2 together - for the upside down of smock2tog, (I guess you could call it smock increase) I have been doing the following: purl up to the knit stitch, make on by knitting into purl loop at the back of the stitch below, slip the knit stitch onto the left hand needle, wrap the yarn round both stitches, slip both stitches back onto the right hand needle and then knit them. All other increases were worked in the same manner (either purling or knitting into the stitch below to the left or right depending on the location of the increase)

Short row shaping round the neck - the pattern has row by row stitch counts, so it is easy to work out how many repeats of the first set of smock increases you need. I needed 10 (worked out by looking at how stitches are decreased on the last row) and marked these out with stitch markers. I worked the first set of short rows to just beyond the stitch markers, the second 1 repeat beyond this and the third 2 repeat beyond this, with the wrap and turns placed in the reverse stockinette stretches.

The rest of the pattern is fairly easy to knit by just following the instructions backwards!

Re-discovered Enthusiasm!

2008-09-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

It is amazing how much knitting I suddenly got done when there was a dealine. Entering the Ravelympics was a stroke of genius that gave a new sense of purpose to everything. Up until that point, I had been picking up my Tangled Yoke every couple of days and half heartedly knitting a few rows, but there was no exitement to the process. It was just something I did every so often, there was no exitment, no urge to finish and find out if the final product matched expectations. It was lovely that, for once, the final product exceeded all reasonable hope andturned out to be lovely.

My Tangled Yoke cardigan is still wonderful; the most wearable thing I have made ever. I have been wearing it a lot of the time since it was finished, and it is holding up fantastically. It hasn't stretched, it hasn't gone saggy, it still fits. I might reinforce the button and neckband with a bit of ribbon to give it a little bit more stability, thoughthat is a long way down on the list of things I might do one day given infinite time and resources.

The Flutter scarf for my Mum is also lovely, and I have bravely resisted wearing it so far. The colours are so bright and clear and lovely - the photos in the last post were a little bleached by the sun (but hey, when the sun shines I'm not going to complain). I have bought some lovely tissue paper and tonight I am going to parcel it up ready for taking it to her next weekend so that the temptation is removed; though I'm not sure how to fold those lovely flutters.

So after those frantic 2 weeks of focus, I floudered to a complete halt. What was I going to knit next? I thought about picking up my holiday cardigan again, but I need to design the sleeves and the thought of sleeve cap maths makes my brain hurt. I have got it out again though and next time I have a quiet couple of hours I will do said maths and start the knitting again.

So I spent a bit of time surfing things to make that are going to be nice and versatile with a growing bump, but still be wearable thereafter. The two options that I favoured were Coraline and the ever so popular February Lady Sweater. As I am uninspired by yarn shopping at the moment, I cast through the stash and found a big pile of this:

That's Shilasdair Luxury Dk, and it appears that I have 520g of it. It's lovely, a sort of slatey french blue that is so nearly grey and the blend of cashmere, angora and lambswool is soft and quite drapey but still feels remarkably durable. Given that the website claims 300m/100g,there should be just enough to make a Coraline, though it is going to be a very close run thing. I am seriously going to look into the possiblity of knitting this top down because I'm not sure that sort of exitement is good for my nerves.

Swatches have been knit, both on 3.5mm (felt quite stiff and sturdy) and4mm (more drape) and have been blocked. The gauge is just about right in the 4mm swatch, and so I am going to start soon!

Finished Photos!

2008-08-25T10:22:00.003-07:00

So there was a brief window where the sun came out this afternoon, and we grabbed a few photos of my flutter scarf.

Vital details:

Pattern - Flutter Scarf from Mimknits

Yarn - Posh Yarn Eva 4ply, about 160g. This yarn is divine - it is soft and at this gauge drapes fantastically. It also smells of really lovely woodsmoke! My mum chose the colours when we were at Wonderwool Wales earlier this year.

Needles - 3.25mm Knitpicks circulars

Modifications - I did some extra repeats of the main pattern, a total of 130 instead of the 100 directed in the pattern. I had enough yarn so thought I might as well.

This photo is the most accurate of the colours. A glorious blend of reds, apricot, greens, sunshine yellow, brick, purple.

I love this combination of yarn and pattern. The wide blocks of stockinette (9 stitches) show the variation of the colours beautifully. The simple lace panels and the elegant flutters at the bottom of the scarf lift it from a plain knit to something that is graceful and elegant and interesting. It is the perfect sort of pattern for this sort of yarn, as I think all that fantastic colour blending would be lost in a more complicated lace affair.

And it's a nice quick (took me 2 weeks of not that dedicated knitting) to finish and I think my mum is going to love it! For once I am finished a whole 3 weeks ahead of time rather than frantically trying to dry the thing in time to send it off.

Mmmmm - blueberries

2008-08-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

Well - it's the end of the olympics, and I have managed to finish both my intended projects. My Flutter scarf is now blocking, and I still need to darn in the ends, but is dark and all the photos were dismal failures.

Today I was distracted from knitting. In fact, at the moment I am in a sort of between projects quandry. Inspired by the success of my Tangled Yoke (which I wore the whole time I was on holiday and it was much admired - I love it) I want to make more cardigans. The two I am having a dilemma about are either Coraline by Ysolda, or the very famous February Lady Sweater. Both in a style I wouldn't normally choose, neither of which I have the right yarn for. I have enough yarn for a couple of things but I need to design them first. Sigh. Not feeling that mathematical at the moment.

But anyway, the distraction for today was:

We went to our favourite blueberry picking spot, and managed to collect 1.65 kg, before the midges got the better of us and we were driven away. There were LOADS of blueberries, they were big and juicy for scottish hill ones as well. All the rain we have been having recently must have had a good effect on them. It astounds me that no-one else seems to have picked them. We didn't wander more than about 5m from the path up a fairly popluar hill, and we didn't get more than 15 minutes walk from the car part. One woman even stopped to ask us what we were picking (urr, hello, have you not been to the fruit and veg section of your supermarket recently??) and was astounded to hear our plans.

A bit of boiling later, with the help of lots of added sugar, and we had jam!

I can now hear the sound of all the lids popping as the vacuum forms, and it is very satisfying. We need to find a source of more jam jars, because our reccy of the best blackberry spot shows that there are going to be lots and lots in a week or two, and I haven't had bramble jelly for years!

Finished!

2008-08-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

Yey - a sense of jubilation! I have finished my Tangled Yoke, and it is fantastic. It even fits. This is by far and away the most wearable cardigan I have ever knitted, and I love it to bits.

Facts and figures:

Pattern - Tangled Yoke Cardigan by Eunny Jang, in Autumn 2007 Interweave knits magazine. I love it. I knit it almost without modification, though my gauge was a little off. But I was making a size intended to have 3" ease round the bust (46" size), but calculations showed that with my gauge I would have 0 - 1 inch and so I didnt change the pattern. The only change I made was to the neck and button band. I cast off at the top of the cardigan and did the both button bands and the neck band in , with mitred corners, casting off at the end. Mostly I couldn't figure out how to make the join between the neck and button bands look neat as written in the pattern.

Yarn - Knitwitches Alpaca merino blend that I bought at Wonderwool. This yarn was fantastic value at £5 a 100g skein. It is black alpaca blended with a dark brown merino, light stretchy and with a lovely haze. The fabric has come out lovely and stretchy too, and the cables show up nicely. It blooms fantastically on blocking. I think the advertised yardage was a little off, as I have used 360g of yarn, and have enough left over to make the whole thing again.

Needles - 3.25mm knitpicks circulars, 2.75mm for the button bands.

Me with a silly expression - just concerntrate on the cables please!

And side on! The reason for it not quite fitting round the waist is becoming increasingly evident - once this ravelympics is over it is going to be time to break out the baby knitting. I is due at the start of january.

Frustrated.....

2008-08-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

It seems like ages and ages and ages until the olympics start! I am still knitting my tangled yoke, and am drooling at the thought of casting on in some lovely bright coloured yarn and knitting some lace.

There are going to be those mesemerising moments when the yarn colour changes and you get to see how it lines up with the previous row, the flutter scarf is going to have a nice simple easy to follow lace pattern. I have really high hopes for it looking very good indeed in a variagated yarn - not something I normally chose for lace. But this pattern has fairly large blocks of stocking stitch broken up by lace, so there is some nice lacy openness, but enough solid inbetween to make the most of the divine posh yarn eva.

I am so exited about the thought of starting, but as it is a ravelympics challenge am waiting (not very patiently) until the start of the olympic games, to join in what hopes to be the largest mass cast on ever! I have wound two skiens of yarn, which will be more than enough, and they are just sitting there taunting me.

On the subject of the tangled yoke, I have finished my 4" of plain stocking stitch, and am tackling the cabled yoke. I had an absoloute nightmare getting the set up row right. Aparantly, though I have a degree in engineering, 10 years experience of designing foundations and doing sums, 2 A-levels in Maths and grade 8 cello, I am incapable of counting to 10 reliably 24 times. What a dunce.

After 3 attempts at getting the startup row right, with frogging and much counting of stitches inbetween (given my lack of ability in the counting to 10 department, it wasn't entirely surprising that my counting to 276 didn't fare any better), I gave in. I tore up lots of bits of scrap yarn, and put in a marker for every pattern repeat along the row. I then counted, got my husband to check my counting, put the jumper down in disgust, adjusted the markers one last time and then went to bed. The next morning I managed to achieve in 20 minutes, what had taken all of my Saturday afternoon.

I thoroughly recommend the use of stitch markers made of yarn, for where you have to do odd things every 10 stitches with nothing to follow. I didn't realise quite how much of my memorising of a lace pattern involves identifying the correct stitch on the row below and matching the pattern.

Once the cabling was established it was easy to follow the right side rows, but much harder to follow the increases which are done on the wrong side rows. I left the stitch markers in and they were invaluable. I have one more very busy row to go and then it is definatly downhill towards the finishing line! There is only a little bit more yoke to go and then button bands and buttons.

Thouh the ravelympics is restricting my casting on, it has meant that there is going to be no dithering at all over what knitting to take with me on holiday - I have 2 projects that I am on a mission to finish. I hope to have lots of fun lovely finished things to show you all when I get back.

Long time... much fun

2008-08-01T03:17:00.000-07:00

Well, there is lots and lots to say.

I have been knitting again, and I am so glad to actually feel that I want to pick up the needles. Round and round and round in stocking stitch (until I got dizzy). This means that I have finished the sleeves on my tangled yoke, and they have been joined to the body. I was nearly giddy with exitement at this point, because I was having dreams of interlocking cables and exitement and somethat that wasn't stocking stitch. Then I read the instructions and it said 'work in stockinette until yoke measures 4"'. 4"!!!! That is a lot of stocking stitch, when you consider that I have 360 stitches on the needles and something like 36 rows to knit. And I do have very broad shoulders, so I was thinking of adding an extra half an inch into this bit to compensate. I am now resigned to going back and forth for a good while yet, but I might swatch the cable beforehand to give me some exitement. I did take some photos, but none of them had any merit and it still looks like a bundle of dark stocking stitch.

I have been looking to the future though - my next thing is going to be the Flutter Scarf (it seems only appropriate). My mum chose some lovely posh yarn eva at woolfest, and I am going to make it for her birthday.

Seeing as her birthday is in September, I need to get my arse in gear. To help with the motivation for this one, I have entered the ravelympics lace weight long jump (sorry for those who aren't on ravelry, but do sign up you know you want to). To give some urgency to the quest for finishing tangled yoke, I have entered that in the Wip wrestling as well. I hereby state that the aim is to finish both of these by the end of the olympics. Gulp.

So here's some eye candy for you:

This isn't my photo - but was taken this weekend by a friend while we were camping on the beach at Morar. It was great, a fire, marshmallows, fantastic sunset, sandy deserted beach, swimming in the sea, so just about the perfect weekend.

I also had a week off on my own - attending Tai Chi Caledonia. It was a great week, not so many parties for me as last year, but meeting up with old friends and making lots of new ones. Learning lots that was really interesting, and having plenty of time to reflect on things. A perfect pick me up week!

Reunited with my books

2008-07-08T15:04:00.001-07:00

Two mammoth unpacking days later, I have been reunited with my all my books. They just about fit onto the shelves, and I am really enjoying sitting here looking at them and reading things I haven't seen for years. Two boxes have been put aside to be taken to a charity shop, and my spare recent stash fills the whole middle cupboard. Oops. My dear husband wasn't at all impressed with that.

Just to prove a point, I have totally tidied the sitting room. I even swept under the sofa!

This is by far the tidiest room of the house, but I am quite inspired to carry this through, so I think the dining room is going to be next.

And the sleeve is progressing in fits and starts - only another 2" to go until I have finished this one, and then I can start the next one. Then only 4" of knitting round and round the really long rows until the interesting bit!

Revitalised

2008-07-06T07:44:00.000-07:00

What a difference a holiday makes! We have been caming in the lake district for a week, and it was fantastic. I am feeling quite revitalised.

We went climbing:

We played pooh sticks:

We hid in the tent between the heavy showers and thunderstorms, that lead to fantastic photo opportunities:

We found mines to explore (this is Force Crag Mine - you can get in the top, google revealed a map):

And, I have started knitting again. This is an enormous relief, and mostly due to visiting woolfest. Actually, I had a lovely time at woolfest - I didn't spend much at all (my only purchase was a lovely skein of self striping sock yarn from Jen at Fibrespates) but just wandering round all those stalls looking at fantastic things and stroking wool and smelling sheep was just so insirational. So I got out my tangled yoke cardigan a few times, and have finished the body up to the armpits, and made most of the first sleeve. The I only have to finish 4" of body before I get to the 20 exiting rows. But it is good knitting to pick up when there are little kiddies running around and you can't concentrate that much. I'll save the photos for a while, because it doesn't look a whole lot different to the last time I took them!

And my main distraction at home is nearly finished:

This is the current state of the bookshelves in my sitting room. I have been putting gloss paint on these for quite a while now, but I am finally on the last litle bit. I am looking forward to the paint drying so that I can finally unpack all our books and put them away. The last boxes from when we moved - only 3 years late, which isn't bad considering!

Sad week

2008-06-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

Well, on Monday I went to a colleagues funeral. It was very sad, but I took great comfort from the ceremony (humanist celebrants really are worth their weight in gold). He was great - fun, kind, gentle, great fishing stories and advice, hilarious aversion to lapsang suchong (and an amazing ability to smell it fro 50 paces). He met an untimely end in the hills while walking with some others from the office.

So this one goes out to you, JB. We'll all miss you.

And on that note, and becuase I haven't done any knitting for a good while, I might take a short break (though I will be back - promise) until I have something interesting to say or some good photos to show!

More holiday photos....... Mingulay

2008-06-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

So - after 3 days on Pabbay, Donald returned to the island and transferred us the couple of miles down to Mingulay. The first day there was the only bad weather, it rained for about 5 hours in the afternoon, and I sat in the tent and read my book, had lots of naps and then just in time for cooking it magically brightened up.

So the next morning we woke up to another day of brilliant sunshine, and the campsite looked lovely. We went on a little explore round to the peninsula to the north - where the puffins were reputed to be nesting. It's the one you can see on the other side of the bay from the campsite!

So it was down for a little explore in the ruins of Mingulay village. Quite a few people used to live on Mingulay, but it was abandonded due to the lack of a decent landing place which meant they would often go months without being able to get a boat to or from the island.

And the view back accross the bay - if anything it was the more spectacular than the one on Pabbay. The only thing that was spoiling it a little bit was the remains of a rotting whale that floated in and out of the beach for the week. It didn't smell that much, and was mostly white blubber with the most amazing consistency. If you (very gingerly) poked it with a stick the whole thing would wobble!

This is the main puffin nesting site on the island, but the weather was so hot that they were either rafted up on the sea or staying in their burrows. I was inconsolable.

But on the other side of the island. Instead of the puffins there were really big crashing Atlantic waves to watch from the top of the cliffs.

The next day we took the kayaks out to bother some puffins while they were rafting. They were great!

When they come in to land on the water they sort of flap madly until they are just above where they want to sit, then stall and just drop under the water. Then they re-emerge looking a bit surprised - though why the standard landing procedure should be a shock every time is beyond me!

So here is my favourite puffins on the sea photo - they all conveniently lined up and swam away looking comical.

Puffins taking off are almost as funny as puffins landing. They flap and flap and get their wings wet, then run along the surface of the water with their big orange feet until they get to the top of a wave and then finally manage to break free. I could watch them for hours.

The next day, the wind was right down, and we grabbed the opportunity to paddle over to Berneray. Berneray is the very very southern tip of the chain of islands, and is amazing. There will be a photo edition for this bit of the trip sometime soon, but we were running short of battery at this point and so the pictures of puffins and lighthouses are on a CD on their way to me!

But there was enough juice left for a couple of shots of the way back! The sun came out from behind the morning haze the minute we landed and didn't leave until we went home.

And then it was time to depart. It was a sad and traumatic parting, but we were running very low on food so on balance it was time to go. We had a really funny night camped on a verge in Castlebay, next to the ferry and right next to the refrigerated lorry and came on every half hour to charge the batteries. But the pub meal totally made up for it and the sticky toffee pudding and icecream was divine. The locals know how to have a good time on a saturday, so everyone got the wrong side of tiddly and some of the others were spotted dancing with the local talent when we left for bed!

I can't say I am glad to be back, it was a lovely lovely holiday, in fact one of the best I have ever had. It totally reinforces the fact that holidays don't have to be expensive (less than £200 each including food!) and that staying near to home can bring fantastic rewards. Work sucks, and I want to be out fishing in the sun with my boat and all the puffins. But it's only another couple of weeks until we are next away (the lake district for a week's camping and quite probably dropping in for Woolfest on saturday), but it is going to be very very hard to top this one.

I will also now confess that though I did take my knitting with me, I didn't take it out and I haven't picked it up since I have been back. I'm getting into the swing of DIY, and there is progress on the bookcase at long last.

Holiday Snaps - Pabbay edition

2008-06-11T10:43:00.000-07:00

Well, we had a fantastic time! The weather was mostly gorgeous, and the holiday was just great.

This is the boat journey out to Pabbay. We were taken round by the wonderful Donald on his boat the Boy James, the engines were very big and powerful, and it was great fun to go so fast.

And then we were put onto an even smaller boat, and all our stuff was transferred to shore. It seemed like an enormous pile of stuff to lug, but in actual fact the photo makes it seem almost small. Trust me, it was a lot of stuff for 9 people and a dog for a week!

And this is a view of Pabbay Bay from just up the hill to the south. You might be able to just see our tents on the grassy patch just in front of the beach. It was a lovely place to camp - soft grass, sea views from the tent, high enough above the beach to get a little bit of breeze to keep the midges off......... Perfect.

This is a veiw from the very north of the island towards mingulay - it was a lovely walk exploring little crags, sitting in the sun, watching the birds, spotting flowers......

And admiring the very very very big cliffs. They come up on you very surprisingly and are absoloutly stunning.

This lovely little fellow came to sit on the rocks just below our campsite for the for a couple of evenings. He was amazingly unfazed by us all going along to admire his cuteness, and white fluffieness, and taking lots of photos.

There was lots of kayaking, it was lovely having them down there on the beach so that you could just jump in whenever you felt like it. It is so much easier when you don't have to put them onto the car and then unload them.

And here is an attempt at artiness on the beach (though it needs a bit of photoshop to make it straight)

And some more big cliffs, this time on the west of the island with some pretty thrift in the foreground.

One more installment coming from Mingulay, which will mostly feature puffins!

Not long to go now

2008-05-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

This week, instead of knitting, I have been packing and shopping. I am now really exited because on friday we are going here:

View Larger Map

Yes, this is called extreme civilisation avoidance. Those islands are Pabbay and Mingulay, and are at the southern end of the outer hebrides. There are no people there, no phone reception, no internet, no email, just us (we are going with 7 other friends).

To get there we have found a nice man with a boat from Barra, who is going to drop us off and move us between the islands midweek, but that is the only contact we are going to have with the outside world. We are taking climbing kit, kayaks, tents, knitting (well that might only be me), cameras, fishing rods and swimming stuff.

I hope the lovely weather we have had for the last 5 weeks holds!

Now, any hints on what the per person per day chocolate ration should be? How many meals of pasta and pesto can we eat before we get so bored we'd rather go hungry? How many projects do I need to take (we have to carry everything on and off ferries and boats so weight really is an issue)?

Now for some knitting

2008-05-21T10:34:00.000-07:00

Well - I have been debating starting the sleeves of my holiday cardigan, but somehow not got round to it. I finally sorted out the collar at the back, and am quite pleased with it! So here is the current status quo......

And for my easy relaxing knitting, I have done quite a few miles of tangled yoke. I am nearly finished with increasing to the bust, and then there is a little bit of knitting straight before I start the sleeves.

I love the texture of this yarn, mmmmmm, soft and strokeable and longer than I expected. I only just started the second skein out of 8, so I think I'll have quite a bit left over.

Brain Frazzle

2008-05-12T12:45:00.000-07:00

Things that are making my brain frazzled at the moment include work, work, too much sun and too much work! It’s such a shame that I have to have a job – I’d get so much done otherwise.

All of this has left me feeling just a little bit vacant in my spare time. So I came up with the perfect knitting solution – mindless! I have cast on for Tangled Yoke cardigan, by Eunny Jang from an old edition of Inverweave Knits. I have pretty much matched the gauge with my Knitwitches Alpaca/merino mix (this is a lovely dk yarn – 60% black alpaca and 40% dark brown merino) and 3.25mm needles. The row gauge is a couple of rows off, but this can easily be compensated for below the sleeves and by leaving a row out here and there in the yoke. The only modifications I intend to make is the addition of some short row shaping for the bust, (that isn’t going to need any calculation) and the omission of the bobbles on the ends of the cables.

I have lusted after this pattern for a while, admired the cabled yoke, and thought that there is no way I could stand all that rib. Normally I like my knitting to be intellectually stimulating – which usually ends up with me designing something clever with cables or colour work or knitting lacy shawls. This contrasts with all my preferences for clothes, which heavily feature plain stockinette in fine yarns. Nine times out of ten the knitting challenge side of me wins, but at the moment 5 odd inches of garter rib followed by lots of stockinette truly is all that I can manage to think about. The knitting is monotonous but also extremely rhythmic and relaxing as well as surprisingly fast. I have high hopes of wearing this cardigan quite a lot when it is finished.

Swallowtail is finished

2008-05-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

Ok - I finished this a wee while ago, and have been wearing it to much acclaim - but behold my finished Swallowtail Shawl.

Statistics:

Pattern - Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits.
Yarn - 116g of Poshyarn Lucia in Hibiscus (I had 6g remaining)
Needles - 4mm knitpicks options
Finished size - 29" by 59" blocked
Modifications - I did an extra 3 repeats of the budding lace (because I could) and the adjusted the numbers for the lily of the valley lace and the border. I just left out some k2togs to increase the number of stitches accordingly.

As you can see - I have replaced the nupps in the pattern with beads - size 6 yellow and pink silver lined beads. The beads were placed using the inside of a bag tie as wire (all I could find in the house) but it worked! It took a while though, but others in the knitalong were cursing the nupps so it's horses for courses.

I like the pointy edge - I added some beads here as well just to make it matchy matchy. Now it has been worn a couple of times it is a little more subtle but I still like it.

Blocking has transformed this scarf - the lucia has a wonderful natural drape and softness that is just sublime. The beads are a cold contrast, but feel fantastic. The size is just perfect for wearing as a scarf at work when the door is open and it is a bit chilly. Mmmmmm - swallowtail love!

Wonderwool

2008-04-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

Wow.......

That's all I can say!

It was lovely, the Posh yarn stall was the highlight, but there was lots of other interesting stuff there. I met my Mum for the day, ate good food and shopped for yarn. There was lots I didn't really see (read walked past in a daze) but a couple of stalls stood out....

Posh yarn for all that fantastic colour and sensuous loveliness. I did quite a bit of shopping here.

Knitwitches (where I bought some lovely lovely alpaca merino DK)

Knitting4fun - great bright and good value yarns for felting - their slipper kits would make great presents.
Love Patisserie - who made the most divine ginger treacle tart, though the lemon tart and the walnut almond and orange tarts were also lovely.
Garthenor Yarns - so much woolly goodness!
Injabulo - lovely buttons that should be good for my Holiday Cardigan

Moral Fibre - the most amazing nuno felting I have seen - Mum was quite inspired and is going to go on a course
Raggedy and Wench - recycled clothing all coming from charity shops (and made into lovely things by my little brother's girlfriend).....

It was all a bit overwhelming, with long drives at both ends. I loved meeting so many of my Ravelry friends, and chatting to all the people on the stalls. I have been persuaded to go to Woolfest with a friend (she didn't have to try that hard) so it won't be long until I go shopping again!

X-treme knitting - the kishorn edition

2008-04-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

What a totally and utterly fantastic weekend. All I can say is great weather, great hotel, great food, lovely location, and some knitting.

We stayed and ate at the Plockton Inn. Mmmmm - there were at least 3 things for each course that I really really wanted to eat. I had the lighest fluffiest hot smoked salmon pate to start, and then tandoori hake for the main finished off with a fresh raspberry trifle and icecream!

Then a detour to a lovely lovely garden centre just down the road towards Lochcarron. We had a lovely chat to the owner, who has gradually been expanding the area he uses in an old walled garden. It is perfectly sheltered and warm and full of amazing plants. We spent quite a bit of money and our front garden should have some lovely flowers if it all survives.

Then over to Applecross - via the Bealach-na-ba or pass of the cattle, which is a truely mad road that looked stunning with snowy patches all on the top glinting in the sunlight. The london visitors were quite entranced by both the road and the snow. Lunch was had in the Applecross Inn (the best fish and chips I have had for a long time, though Francis says it is rivaled by those he had the evening before) and then we all had a wander round the bay to Applecross House for a look at the deer, the highland cows, the garden and ending in the tea shop!

After all that food, we departed from our London guests, who were heading back to Inverness for another posh meal, and made for Kishorn Boulders. It was fun! I knit, he bouldered, I bouldered, he encouraged, I got daring and fell off onto my bottom in the mud and decided that I should stick to knitting. My swallowtail enjoyed the afternoon in the sun, and I am 54% of the way there according to weight of yarn used!

10 reasons why today is a fantastic day

2008-04-18T01:32:00.000-07:00

1) The sun is shining and the weather is fantastically clear and bright and beautiful

2) The flowers in my garden look fantastic. This is the first year we have had flowers in the garden rather than just storing rubble in it. I love cowslips - hopefully in a few years we'll have enough to start making cowslip wine!

3) Yesterday evening we went to the tip several times , so what did look like this:

..... now looks like this and later on I am going to be planting potatoes in it!

4) Posh Yarn is fantastic!!! I have cast on for the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave, using 515 yards of Lucia in Hibiscus. I love the warm bright pinks and reds and oranges and yellows. This is another knitalong to be found in the Posh Yarn group on Ravelry, and we are all loving it.

5) I have finished the back of my holiday cardigan!

6) The shoulders have been bound off (I could wax lyrical about the wonders of the three needle bind off at this point, but instead just look at how the cables join - even the short row shaping worked !). I have done half the collar and it is going to look fantastic.

7) I HAVE THE DAY OFF WORK!!!! (This makes me really really really happy, especially as it is combined with all the other things like the weather)

8) Later on today my best mate from university is coming to stay for the weekend.

9) We are going to stay the night at the Plockton Inn

10) The only two dilemmas that I have to face is whether to take kayaks, bikes, walking kit, bouldering stuff (or all of it) and which knitting to pack!

Now which of the fun things am I going to do first???

Let's have a party in the garden!

2008-04-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

Mostly, today I am happy because the sun is shining, the clocks have changed so the sun is still shining in the garden when I get home and it is a great day for photographing finished things!

So.... I present my garden party!

Vital statistics:

Pattern - Garden Party Shawl by Fiberdreams
Yarn - Cecilia Cobweb weight silk/cashmere blend from Posh Yarn (colourway Sweet). I used 66g of a 100g skein.
Needles - Knitpicks 3mm circulars
Modifications - I made the shawl a lot bigger then the pattern stated as mentioned in some detail here.
Finished dimensions - 34" by 70"

And other than blocking my garden party, I have been knitting the back of my holiday cardigan. I am now onto the armhole shaping so feeling as though some progress is being made. The complicated calculations are over, the combining the cables in the middle is done, and all I have to do is carry on moving the cables outwards towards the shoulders. Then all I need to do is finish the sleeves and make the armholes fit. Hmmmm.

Messing round at the Garden Party

2008-04-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

I am now nearly finished on my garden party. Adding the border is taking quite a while though, mostly my own fault for making lots of modifications (sorry for the quality of the photo - the flash makes the yarn's subtle and lovely colour variations stand out much more than they do in real light)

I swatched for this project, because I was using cobweb weight yarn from Dee at Poshyarn and had a good hunch that it would be too fine on 3.75mm needles. I tried 2.75mm, 3mm and 3.25mm, and in the end plumped for the 3mm knitpicks.

The shawl construction on this is lovely and interesting. First you knit a thin strip of leaves. Then you work the right side, joining onto the leaves, then the left, and finally some rows all the way across before adding a knitted on border. Because I was using smaller needles, and had 1300yds of yarn available, I thought it would be good to make the shawl a little bit bigger than advertised.

There were two obvious ways to do this and I have done both. Firstly, I added 4 extra repeats of the leaf pattern (40 rows) to the centre panel. Then, correspondingly, I knit an extra 5 repeats (40 rows) of the rosebud lace pattern onto each side.

A careful stitch count showed that I had the wrong multiple of stitches for the start of the lacy lattice (I was 2 short), but this was quickly sorted out by replacing two of the p3tog with p2tog on the first row of the lattice.

Once the lacy lattice was established, it was just a question of plugging away along rows that really were getting very very long. I did some complicated maths to try and work out how much lattice I needed to knit so that I had the right number of stitches for the border, I got it wrong a couple of times, and eventually kept knitting until I had 409 stitches in total. By this point the rows were taking a very long time.

I also started the border a different place to that stated in the pattern. I just preferred the thought of starting right at the point rather than on row 9 as stated. And all this mean that I had, instead of 8 repeats of the border along each edge, 12 instead, and there was still a stitch or two to fudge. But there are always stitches to fudge when applying edging! Given that it is on average taking me just under an hour to do a repeat this is quite a bit of extra border knitting. Still, only 6 more to go so I should finish this week!

Taking holiday for a trip

2008-03-18T15:02:00.001-07:00

This week I went on a little site visit to Orkney for work. As is tradition, the weather was horrid for work (wet and windy and cold) but on the way to my hotel the clouds parted momentarily so I stopped at the standing stones to soak up a few sunset rays.......

These are the Stones of Stenness - I love the way they are so tall and thin, almost like they might snap!

And then further along the road is the Ring of Brogar. It was a lovely sunset that totally made up the long hours stood in horizontal drizzle trying to draw a map.

But I managed to finish the second front of my Holiday Cardigan. I am still pleased with the knitting, and the yarn is fantastic. The transformation of the fabric on blocking is amazing..........

Unblocked, it is bumpy and uneven and rough........

But blocked it is transformed into a fluid and smooth even softness that is just divine.

Since then I have been totally distracted by knitting on my garden party shawl. At the moment is looks like a red mass attached to two needles and is refusing to be photogenic. And the evil tempting people on the Posh Yarn Ravelry group are going to be knitting along the swallowtail shawl from Interweave next. I have my eye on a special skein from this weeks sale (it's a secret or you'll all notice how lovely it is and might get there before me). The pattern can be knit from one skein of PY lace - it's quite a small shawl, and perfect for wearing as a scarf. I think I am going to make mine out of sock weight though, just because the colour I am lusting after is totally perfect! This is a perfect first lace project if any of you fancy joining in - there's nothing complicated about yarn overs and k2tog's - you just need a quiet space to sit down and concentrate until you have learnt the pattern.

Xtreme Knitting

2008-03-16T12:03:00.000-07:00

Today, I am going to be smug about the weather! It has been lovely and sunny and not even too windy.

I have started lace knitting again. I have secured myself some lovely silk/cashmere cobweb weight lace yarn (Cecilia) from Posh Yarn next week. Lovely not quite solid orangy red, a colour way called Sweet. And I have cast on for the Garden Party shawl, and there is a fantastic knitalong on the Posh Yarn group on Ravelry. I didn't have any yarn in the stash that would have been suitable so I had to wait for the next sale day, and then wait for it to arrive, and then wind it, so it was yesterday before I got to cast on,

Today was a pre-arranged day out with my Husband. I snuck the knitting in the car, and we headed for Torridon, because for once the forecast was best in the west. We were going to walk up a little hill and get some photos of Liathach because it was looking all pretty and covered in snow.

But we were too lazy so we went bouldering instead.....

Husband looking heroic - and me trying very hard.

Look at that gurn!

And then, because Husband was having a nap in the sun, I snuck my knitting out of the bag and managed a good few repeats of the rose pattern which makes up the first part of the shawl.

It was a lovely day for al-fresco knitting, though I am worried about us turning native - we spend the whole day saying how warm it was and how lovely the sun was. We were even sitting round in t-shirts for part of the day. It was 6 C.

Relief

2008-03-08T07:53:00.001-08:00

I finished the left front of the holiday cardigan yesterday. I knit it based on the tension of my swatches, which were all nicely blocked, but it seemed a little bit on the small side. I had a collection of my jumpers on the sofa and have been comparing them as I went along, had my fingers firmly crossed, and was knitting away with all the hope in the world. Last night I slipped all the stitches onto a waste bit of yarn, stuck it in the sink and then pinned it out and at least it conforms to the expected measurement! Whooppeeeeee. It still seems a little on the small side when held up against me, but comparisons to my other clothes show that I shouldn't be worrying. Blocking does transform the finished fabric though, it smells deliciously of my favourite shampoo, and has bloomed and softened fantastically.

I weighed it - a total of 108 grams, which means that I should even have enough yarn to finish the project with a bit to spare!

So far so according to the plan. I just have to hope that the plan is right.

The holiday begins

2008-03-04T14:21:00.001-08:00

This is how far I have got with the Holiday cardigan. It is coming on better than I might have expected, given that I only started it on Sunday evening. I have reached (I think) milestone number 1 which is the bottom of the sleeve shaping.

I always try and find some new things to learn on every project I do - so for this one I did a casting on experiment. I tried the Italian cast on, the german, the twisted german and then finally decided that I liked the thumb cast on I normally use better. Ordinarily I would go for a tubular cast on for a ribbed edge, but in order to make the ribbing fit in with the various cables it is uneven and so I couldn't find a tubular on that could deal with that.

The other technique that is a bit new is that I have been doing all my cables without a cable needle, and though it takes a bit of getting used to (that bit involves dropping stitches, which isn't so bad considering that this wool is lovely and sticky).

The next bit gets a little more complicated, as I try and figure where to start the neck shaping and what to do with the armholes. But I need a fresh brain to think about that, it's late, my husband is asleep on the sofa under the blanket and I need to put him to bed!

In the meantime my extra 50g of cashmere is here so there is that to distract me from cables.

Swatchy swatchy!

2008-03-01T02:37:00.000-08:00

I have reached as far as I can go with the lovely soft and scrummy cashmere - and the scarf isn't really going to be long enough. So I posted a couple of inches of the yarn of to Eva from Shilashdir, she has found me 50g more of the same dye lot and it is currently winging it's way over to me. I am really looking forward to it getting here, knitting with it is such indulgent pleasure - the way it feels running though your fingers is so addictive it is untrue. I just want it to be finished so that I can sit in work wearing it and having the odd fondle to cheer me through something direly uninteresting like a due diligence report.

I have managed 21 and a bit repeats of the pattern, and unblocked it is currently 48" long - enough for nearly round the neck but none down the side. I dont think it is going to grow enormously lengthwise on blocking, but it will expand width wise.

Anyway, the stash enhancement was significant...... so I have been playing swatchy swatchy with some brick red aran weight that also came from Eva.

This is going to be a lovely fitted cable cardigan. The inspiration is one of the jumpers worn by Cameron Diaz in the holiday. In fact, she wears a lot of really nice clothes all through out the movie - the cable cardigan is towards the bottom of this link. I admit to making my mate rewind and watch the scenes with it in, but didnt have anything to make notes. So 2 months on, armed with a memory and that one photo I am going to make my homage to the white cable cardigan. The most interesting part is the back, which has some interesting shaping moving the cables round, which might mean I need to make interesting sleeve caps, but that is a bridge I don't have to cross any time soon.

Feeling the scarf love

2008-02-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

Ok - so I only finished my last scarf last Wednesday, but I admit to immediately having cast on for another one.

This one is going to be very different. I enhanced my stash significantly last week, and this has been begging me to be cast on ever since. It was only because I had less than half a ball of the swiss cheese scarf that I had enough determination to spend an evening finishing that one off before casting on.

So..... Meet the softest, most strokeable, most deliciously coloured pure cashmere ever:

It's from a favourite yarn dyer of mine, a lovely lady called Eva, who has a shop right on the north end of skye. I have been there before and I love the colours - they are all natural dyes done in a little studio at the back of the shop and so so so tempting. I also left with a jumper's worth of aran wool, a jumper's worth of luxury wool (the alpaca, cashmere and lambswool dk blend), but there will be more about them later because they are going to be lovely interesting jumpers. If you are ever anywhere near there, it is so worth taking a diversion to the shop bedcause it is divine, and Eva is lovely to chat to as well.

I only got 100g of hand spun aran weight cashmere, which I am hoping is going to be enough to make a scarf. I am liking scarf knitting at the moment - I got more compliments for my swiss cheese scarf than almost anything else I have knitted, and today is the first day that I haven't worn it all day. But it is
actually very useful for adding just that little bit of warmth in the office when the door is open to let some fresh air in. So I am going to have a scarf thing going on for a while so that I have a range ready to wear with different outfits!

I fancied something a little bit lacy as well, so got out my Barbera Walker book 1 (I aim to collect all these but got this one for christmas) and flicked through the lace section going "oooooh, aahhhh, that's nice, but I like that one as well....." until I got to the drooping elm leaf pattern, at which point I stopped realising that I had found the one. I cast on enough for 2 repeats, with a little garter stitch on each side, intending to make a swatch. I liked the swatch so much that I have continued knitting it and am now about half way through my 100g of cashmere. Knitting with this is so lovely, the feel of it running round your fingers with each stitch is so nice that you want to stop and savour every stitch. I really don't ever want it to end, yet I am compelled to knit this and nothing else, so it isn't going to last for long.

It is looking like the scarf is going to be a little on the short side at the moment, but I will knit till nearly the end, block it a bit and then see if I need to be ordering another little bit of the yarn. Which isn't going to be such a terrible shame at all.

With added holes

2008-02-13T10:43:00.000-08:00

After a long pause, my knitting of the Swiss Cheese Scarf resumed earlier last week, and with the end in sight I have been extra motivated this last couple of days. The dedication to the cause has paid off - the swiss cheese scarf is now off my needles and looking LOVELY!

Yarn - 4 balls of Rowan 4-ply Soft in Military, that I bought in the sale a couple of years ago for very very cheap and have had sitting in a drawer for too long.

Needles - 4mm knitpicks interchangeables (I am in love with these needles)

Modifications - I read the pattern, took the gist of it and then went ahead and knit. I 4 sets of holes in the first row, meaning I cast on 76 stitches.

Dimensions - HUGE after blocking (13" wide by 104" long) It was hard to work out how long this was going to be, but I wanted it to go a couple of times round the neck and used the tried and tested method of knitting until I ran out of wool. I didn't block that hard, but it still stretched until it no longer fit on my biggest rug!

Cast on - 8th December, cast off 12 February 2008

New things - I used the backwards loop cast on for all except the initial cast on (thumb method). I like the elasticity that this gives, but knitting the first row above the cast on stitches is a bit of
pain. Thank heavens for my nice sharp and pointy knitpicks! Cast-off's were just the regular, and inbetween I just did a lot of knitting.

Comments - I love how this looks. It is simple and smart and modern (and surprisingly warm considering how much of it is hole). I am in love with the yarn, and have it on my list of yarns that I would like to knit a jumper or something out of. The pattern is almost totally mindless
knitting. Every 6 rows or so you do have to pay a bit of attention to casting off the right number of stitches, and making sure that all the holes are lining up right, but for 80% of the knitting it is just totally straight forward, mindless, relaxing, perfect for watching films or chatting!

Now I'm off to swan around looking glamourous and lovely in my new scarf (and get some proper photos of it in the light!)

Home again

2008-02-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

Well, it's really really really good to be home again!

This weekend I was officially distracted from all plans by a last minute invitation to a ball (my husband looks dead sexy in a DJ) and some friends arriving for the weekend and lots and lots of white fresh powdery snow. We went cross country skiing and it was fantastic. Even the sun shone, and for scotland it wasn't that windy.

But more importantly, I have assembled all that I need to finish off the entrelac bag. It is finally felted. It took some felting, at 30 deg it just went a bit fluffy, at 40 it might have shrunk a little, but by the time I had run it through the machine at 60 a couple of times it was finally properly felted. And my towels have never seen this much washing in one day!

I have been on the internet, and ordered some leather straps, some handbag feet and a magnetic clasp. I have found a folder to massacre, and my very limited fabric stash had a yard of shot silk in a great colour that will be lovely for the lining.

I am going to do a double lining, with some cotton as well, just to give a bit of extra strenth. The folder is going to be the base and possible might make some sort of reinforceing at the top of the bag. I haven't quite figured how I am going to attach the handles, but I'm sure somthing will come to me.

I'm really looking forward to doing this over the next couple of evenings..... now that I am no longer distracted by the snow (it's melted) or diy (do you like my new hardwood flooring in the photo above?)

More weather

2008-01-22T07:27:00.000-08:00

Well.....

The weather is not improving. Actually, I lie. There have been a couple of really really nice days, like yesterday. We motored through our site work, and then there was enough time for a wander to the beach near our cottage to have a look at the sunset. And it was a beautiful sunset, the moon was up above the hills (yes, there are hills out here) and there was a wonderful pink reflected glow above them. Out to sea there was a fantastic display of little fluffy clouds illuminated in shades of orange and yellow by the setting sun, and the waves were glinting with colours. I am not saying it was warm - I was wearing plenty of clothes but it was just about tolerable in terms of coldness. Today it is blowing a hoolie again, and there is horizontal drizzle blowing everywhere, and it is freezing and miserable.

Average daily wear over here - thermal undies, trousers, salopettes, jumper, fleece, hi-vis jacket, scarf, hat, 2 pairs of gloves (one thick, one thin - wear one of each and you can just about write and then swap them over when it all gets too much for the writing hand) and 2 pairs of socks. Not that I would say it is sexy, but you do fit in with the locals in a strange way, though for additional camoflage I should have a boiler suit. This is not an attracive look in any way, and I am longing to get dressed up for something and feel pretty and desirable again.

I am slowly getting island fever. I love the scenery, it is so amazingly bleak, but I could not live here. Today, we found a really civilised cafe - in the hebridean jewellry shop, where I have spend most of my site allowance on a really nice green beaded necklace. We had panini and cappucino. It was great. Other than that the main source of amusement is going to co-op. There are two within shouting distance - one at the south end of Benbecula, and one in Daliburgh. The one in Benbecula is better. We go every day for a little outing. Yesterday we went a bit mad and raided the magazine section and learnt lots of useful things from cosmo/look/glamour like how orange is the new colour of the season. It is nice to see that the consumer driven world still exists. Othen than that this second visit to the community centre is the social highlight of the trip so far!

Home on friday though, and I am going to have a shower, do my hair, dress up in a pretty dress and then go to the ballet. Bring it on!

Cold and Wet

2008-01-18T05:21:00.000-08:00

Well, predictably the weather in the Uists has been cold and wet. Today we are so cold and it is so wet and windy that we have found a really nice community centre with Internet access, and so at least we are warm.

Later I am going to bake a cake, and do some more knitting. I have a black secret thing with me, that is taking ages, and for stuff inbetween that am plodding through the swiss cheese scarf.

But mostly I have been too cold to do any knitting - it is about all I can manage to make hot drinks and food when we get back from site, and then I have been in bed by about 9.30 most nights. Great - living the high life. Only one more week to go though, and fingers crossed the weather improves from today!

Significant milestones

2008-01-08T10:34:00.000-08:00

I seem to mostly have had mindless knitting on the needles recently. But at least one of the projects is now off the needles.

Meet the entrelac bag........

Oooo - closeup!
I have been going round and round in circles making squares for quite a while. 5 balls of kureyon's worth of round and round. I have learnt to knit backwards nearly as fast as forwards, and don't really have to think about it anymore.

Tonight the bag has been introduced to it's nemesis - the washing machine - for a little felting fun. It's in a pillow case and it's doing one cycle at 30 degrees, see how that goes and then maybe send it through again.

I am almost exited about the washing machine being finished. This is not normal so I think I am going to have to have a cup of tea to recover.

My only handmade present

2007-12-22T13:28:00.001-08:00

This year I am slightly ashamed to admit that I only managed one handmade present. Not very ashamed, but a little bit. Normally I manage more than that, but the last few weeks have seemed very hectic and I have hardly had the inclination to think of things to make people. That has always been the problem - when I have an idea then it is all easy and I just have to figure out a way to make it, but actually thinking of that perfect hand crafted present is the real challenge.

I did manage one thing though. My housemate from University, who I visited in London not that long ago, is also a knitter. Sadly, neither of us were knitting at the time we lived together (now nearly 8 years ago, which makes me much older than I would want to admit) but since then we have both developed the habit/addiction/hobby....

And this year she is getting knitting related presents - some lovely luxuries from Purlescence and I have fashioned a needle holder for her (having duly noted comments and her discovery of 3 pairs of needles the same size, in different parts of her house, and the total loss of the size she wanted).......

Once I had conceived the idea (it took 3 weeks of deliberation and shopping and frustratingly not finding anything before the memories slotted into place and the perfect solution presented itself) it took me about 2 hours to make. And at least 30 minutes of that 2 hours was spend rummaging in boxes for the material and then searching everywhere for a pair of at least sharpish scissors. The material is an old length of silk that I bought about 4 years ago in a fantastic sari shop in Bradford, and has been waiting for a use ever since. I used some plain cotton calico to give everything some structure, and just got sewing without any particular plan.

The basic method of attack was:

2 pieces of silk and one of calico - a bit taller than my needles and about 1m long. One piece of silk needs to be about 3cm bigger in each direction so that you can make a hem at the end.
1 of silk and 1 of calico a bit shorter than my needles and the same length.

The shorter pieces were sewn together along one of the long edges, turning a nice neat hem over the top of the calico and stitching all the way through. Trim the bottom so that it all lines up nicely.

These were then sandwiched together with the longer calico and 1 piece of silk. I sewed a line along the bottom of the needle holder through all 4 layers, and then up each edge.

Then sewed a series of vertical lines to create the pockets - I did some quite wide (about 1.5 inches) for larger needles up to 15mm, and then made them smaller as I went along. There are about 20 pockets in all. Then all the edges got trimmed so that they were square and neat with no mad cotton ends everywhere.

Then I just pinned the final outside piece of silk to the pockety sandwich, made nice hems round the edge (ironed and then lots of pins) and merrily sewed round the edge.

A nice piece of ribbon sewn onto the outside makes a lovely fastening, and you have one nice and sleek and useful handmade present for a knitting friend.

I actually think every knitter needs a set of coordinating holders - 1 for dpns, 1 for straight needles and one for circulars. Maybe I'll save the rest of the material and make her another one for her birthday!

I am so enjoying being finished with work for 2 weeks with no particular plans. Not only did I get this sorted out this morning, but managed to go into town for lunch with my Other Half, clean up quite a bit in the dining room, cook soup, go shopping for chrismas treats (mmmm stollen) and purchase and decorate the christmas tree. I would be so productive if only I didnt have to work.

Not much knitting

2007-12-14T15:02:00.000-08:00

My life feels somewhat taken over at the moment. Darn christmas! Every one at work seems to have decided that christmas is a good time to have deadlines. I have to have so much done by the end of next week it is untrue. On the plus side once that is done I have 2 weeks holiday, at home with my lovely other half. Then one week at work, then two weeks field work in the outer hebrides (I love it out there and my work involves looking at the beaches which are divine). I have booked a lovely cottage with sea views and a wood burning stove, which I am going to need because statistically it is a very bad time of year to be working out there

Yesterday was my first proper knitting time for about 2 weeks. Man flu was nearly deadly, then there was hall plastering to be done (one little bit of the ceiling left). We are trying to finish the hall and the spare room in time for our hoards of visitors at new year. It is going to be great to see some old mates but a bit tiring to get enough rooms sorted out to manage to find beds for 7 people.

But I have digressed from knitting - I about 1.5 balls of rowan 4-ply soft into a swiss cheese scarf, and having knitted the heel of my jaywalker about 5 times I finally am progressing up the end. But I had 6 hours on the train with only a little bit of work to do yesterday, so that was enough time to scheme and try different things out. It was definitely a learning experience and iI have come to understand a lot about how heels are made. Short row heels don't fit my fat ankles, I have a small gauge so there are no patterns to follow, but now I have a method and it fit's really well round on the foot, and I am made up.

My stash has also been enhanced - a couple more skeins of 4-ply soft to make a beret/sloppy garter stitch hat to go with my scarf, maybe some mittens too. A few skeins of sock yarn to go with certain new shoes in my possession, an order for some jamiesons DK in a lovely apple green so that I can make a tangled yoke cardigan, some really nice tweedy wool for something, and I have every intention of getting a large cardigan's worth of brown cashmere in the sales so that I can have a go at making a version of that gorgeous cabled cardigan out of the holiday movie.

Bring on those long dark evenings in front of the fire! I really need a holiday.

Re-united!

2007-11-21T03:13:00.000-08:00

I am back from staying with my mother! In the end, it was all ok - my 5 days without my knitting. There was plenty of creating - my brother had a mad hatters tea party, and so we raided my mum's dodgy linens chest and made some truely outrageous hats. It was great fun. And then I made my mum get out her knitting because 3 days in to the stay I was getting very itchy fingers. My mum has been knitting this tulip cardigan for almost as long as I remember. At least 20 years anyway. The colours are really lovely (tulips are different shades of pink on a blue/grey background) - but having devoted an evening to finishing a sleeve I can quite see why it has taken her so long. It is all fairisle, and knitted in this doubled up very very fine wool she bought from a weaver. Nightmare. She only has one more sleeve to go, so on current projections should be finished sometime in 2012.

The first thing I did on returning was to get onto the knitpicks site and order some needles. I am now the proud owner of an options set AND quite a lot of their finer circulars. They are great. I am knitting socks with them. Long live the magic loop and death to DPN's! I am experimenting with making toe up jaywalkers.... the colours are lovely, the pattern is lovely, I am about to get to the bit where i have to turn the heel so it might all cease to be lovely by the time i have worked it out wrong a few times.

Other than that work is totally hectic, I am plastering the hall in our house, my husband is possibly dying of man flu....... which all means that half a sock is pretty good progress.

I've goofed

2007-11-08T04:59:00.000-08:00

I am staying with my mother for a long weekend (she has been gifted the harebell lace scarf and love's it). I came down on the plane yesterday, and she came to collect me from Bristol Airport, which is lovely because it is about 3 hours drive each way. Because I am away until Sunday, and then going to a conference next week, I decided to spend my last night at home for a while having some quality time with my husband.

We went for a lovely meal, picked up a programme for the theatre/nice cinema; our arts centre has spend the last 2 years shut for renovation and opened last weekend. I am really exited about having 2 cinema screens less than 5 minutes walk from my house, and being able to watch lots of foreign and interesting films. Then we spent the rest of the evening sitting by an open fire in our sitting room, marvelling at the newfound warmth. Given that I have finally nearly finished the curtains (they are still pinned at the bottom and I need to take them down and do the hems on 2 of the pairs) and have insulated under the floor finally, this is a relativly exiting activity.

I did a couple of round on the entrelac bag. It is much bigger than anticipated, and I am on the 4th ball of kureyon. I have one more left, and I think that will just about finish it off. A nice bit of stash completion if ever there was one. It is going to make a fantastic bag - lined and given handles - great for shopping.

I purposly didnt bring it with me, thinking that I might still give it to Mum for christmas so I didn't want her to see it. Instead, I have swatched in my olive and lettuce coloured malabrigo worsted weight, and washed them (learnt my lesson from Meagidh, which has grown considerably on washing and needs re-knitting - it is ok for one wear but then grows - and I think I want to alter the neckline). I wound 3 of the skeins onto balls, sorted out the needles, remembered my tape measure and knitting design sketch book. And left the swatches pinned to the spare bed - so I have everything ready to do the maths for a new cardigan, but no idea of the gauge. I could ring home tonight and get my husband to measure it for me, but quite frankly I am so worried about it not being right that I don't think I can really trust him.

But not to worry - I had a backup plan. I have a lovely skein of sock yarn - one of the october specials from Violet Green. A lovely mix of burnt orange, terracotta, reds and browns. Just perfect for some socks for me, and given that I have newly discovered the magic loop techinque, just perfect for doing a little bit more of that. But I looked through the needle collection and found that the smallest circular I have is my 3.75mm addi turbo lace. But still no peturbed, I calmly chat to Mum and determine that Get Knitted isnt so far from Bristol airport, and we have an hour to spare. And they sell Knitpicks needles. By this point I am formulating a long and complicated shopping list - possibly a set of Knitpicks options, and certainly one of each of all their smaller needles. And they have Cascade 220, which i am seriouly thinking of getting to make afghan mark 2 so that I can occasionally have a go under one; my lizard ridge has been claimed and I almost never get to use it. And Malabrigo laceweight - I could get a skein and make me one of these. Oh - it's a frustrated rural knitter's dream - especially as I have no local yarn shop.

But the plane was late and mum had to go to an art class in the evening so in the end there wasnt time. So I am stuck here with not knowing the gauge for the project I have needles and wool for, and not having needles for the other one.

I have goofed. I am facing 5 days with no knitting - will I make it? Who knows. Wish me luck!

It's quite hard to take photos of your own head

2007-10-27T05:15:00.000-07:00

A better knitting week for me this week. I seem to have rediscovered some of my mojo anyway! Mostly I decided to raid the stash and see what there was in it that I could make presents from, or at least small items that would give some sense of instant gratification rather than the rather daunting task of starting a sweater.

So I present the Koolhaas hat copy that is destined for my brother for his birthday. This is the only photo out of about 50 that actually came anywhere near having my whole head in!

Pattern - it's a rip off of Brooklyn tweed's Koolhaas hat, which is included in Interweave holiday gifts. I didn't buy the pattern I just saw the pictures on his blog and copied it. I totally love the way it is so architectural (being an engineer I relate to clean lines and symmetry) and interesting though suitable for a man. I cast on 132 stitches, worked in P4,k2 rib for a bit and then started twisting stitches every other row. Decreases were worked by doing a K2tog instead of a twisted stitch once every set of diamonds. I had to play around with the crown a bit to get it to lie flat, but once this has been through the machine it will be pretty good.

Yarn - some random 100% machine washable DK weight wool/acrylic mix that came from the old lady next door when she moved out. But it's machine washable, which is important for my brother, and one of the only things that I have in the stash that is man coloured.

Needles - Addi turbo lace 3.75mm - 100cm long, meaning that I worked on the magic loop for the whole hat.

Cast on - last thursday - 18th october
Cast off - Monday - 22nd october

So for this week's challenge I am experimenting with entrelac. I have never done it before, though it's rather fun. I am utilising some of the balls of kureyon that I have left over from making my lizard ridge blanket. It is a total of suck it and see really...... but fun! I am going to felt it in the end to make something nice and sturdy, that will either be so fantastic I keep it or will be a christmas gift for someone. We have a tradition of only ever giving home made presents so I really do need to start thinking about christmas now.

The other great thing that happened is that I finally managed to get my KTS4 package from the post office......... I am drinking a cup of tea from it as I type, and have just finished a chocolate from the world's most northern chocolate company!

It's been such fun swapping with Else - a fantastic match if ever there was one! Check out her blog to see the great mug I found for her!

I got all sorts of things.... drops alpaca in a fanstastic burnt orange, the most delicious cloudberry sweets, lots of cute chocolates, a great mini tea filter so that I can brew the (very lovely) loose leaf tea! A tea tin with a massive variety of different tea bags in, some norwegian snacks and more chocolate. Mmmmmmm. Thank's Else!

Mojo - lost

2007-10-21T06:19:00.002-07:00

Well, the title says it all really! Not that much productive knitting going on here at the moment. I spent last weekend in Carbisdale castle doing a tai chi course - we learnt a lot of stuff about meridian theory, some chineese medicine stuff and did loads of push hands. I came back so chilled out that I could barely function - looking out of the window wondering at the beauty of the world and how nice all the leaves looked and didnt the river smell lovely and clean was about the pinnacle of my intellectual capability!

I want to knit, but nothing seems to be working. I am planning 3 things:

Desert sunrise - I have decided that this is going to be a cardigan, a couple of inches rib round the bottom, cute little round neck, a couple of inches ease, fitted, clean lines and nice and simple. The object of the swatching (There has been a lot of swatching, even though all of them were wrong and ended up getting ripped) is to get the colours to look right (background is staying mid -dark brown, with the contrast varying between dark red, burnt orange and into yellow), maintaining the proportions so that I have a chance of using the yarn I have and not having to buy more and still have some sort of flow. I need to rejig my chart to have 3 less rows in it and then I think it will work.

Man jumper - the sweater curse is live and well. Only it doesnt seem to be killing our relationship, just my desire to knit a jumper that is black and in 2x2 rib. I need to think of a way to make it more interesting while maintaining enough simplicity that my husband will actually wear the thing when I am finished.

Green jumper - I have enough skeins of malabrigo worsted weight to make me the desired green jumper. But I have no inspiration as to how it should work. The wool is so lovely and soft, and looks so fantastic that I want it to be just right, so I am almost afraid of starting!

And then I found this post on Brooklyntweed's blog about the koolhaas hat and thought that I just had to make one. Seeing as how no-where had the pattern in Inverness (I am TRYING to convince somewhere to sell in Interweave stuff with no luck) and I dont really like the other stuff in the magazine enough to justify buying it mail order, I just sort of set about copying it. I'm not totally convinced about the yarn I used (some random stuff I have inherited, which is some sort of wool/acrylic blend I think in green/blue) or the decreases, but overall it worked pretty well. I am rather proud of myself, and it will do perfectly fine for my brother's birthday, which is in a couple of weeks time.

On the other hand not having that much time dedicated to knitting, means that I have got my parcel all wrapped and ready for my KTS-4 swap partner, Else, so that can go in the post on Monday. And it means that our new window has had a coat of paint, there are two more curtains in the sitting room (only 2 to go, but I have lost extra red cotton so had to stop), our stag antlers have finally been put on the wall (a "quick job" that took 2 hours) and there has been plenty of exiting and interesting baking this week! Obviously this is what other people do when they dont knit.

Photos another day - the husband is out with the camera!

New Project Fortnight

2007-10-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

I have been hatching a plan today at work - and drawn a HUGE chart.

And tonight I didn't get any knitting done but I did get to wind some wool into balls. I have decided that it is about time I got a ball winder, because I really really wanted to start a swatch but instead I have just been winding, winding and winding some more!

So here we have several skeins of Jamieson shetland jumperweight wool. This was a fantastic deal - I had to spend a few days in Lerwick for work in the spring (I only meant to be there one night but it got foggy and so I was stuck there for an extra day, and then had to get the ferry which takes 15 hours and leaves me in Aberdeen which is still basically 3 hours from home, rather than an hour or so on the plane) and I was soooo bored until inspiration struck and I went looking for the wool shops. There are lots and lots of shops selling boxy fairisle jumpers, and then finally I found one that would sell me wool and needles. Problem solved!

This selection came in a bag called Desert Sunrise or something similar, and I added a couple of extra yellow balls to the mix for some brightness. There were 2 skeins that didn't quite fit with my intended colour scheme.......

This is my first new project on which I am going to be experimenting. I have done a couple of fairisle things, so happy with the techniques, but this will be the first proper jumper I have done. Or maybe cardigan. Who knows - first I have to swatch.

But this is going to be the first of several casting projects over the next wee while, because it is going to involve carting round many balls and lots of concentration, so I am going to start a couple of easy things as well for in between times.

The other thing I have done is sign up to the knitters tea swap...... shopping soon so that I can post to my partner, Else, who lives further north in Norway than I previously realised existed. They already have snow up there so knitting season has well and truly arrived!

And then there were two.....

2007-10-09T13:42:00.000-07:00

Finished object alert.......

Well, my first finished sock has a sister now!

Some statistics:

Yarn - Colinette Skye in shade Neptune, two skeins
Needles - 3.75 addi turbo lace (these have featured a lot in my life recently)
Pattern - Made it up with advice from several google searches.
Cast on - last week!
Cast off - just now (again)

So that I have it written down somewhere.....

Cast on 20 stitches using judy's magic cast on. This was the first time that I have ever used it (my last abortive sock had a short row toe which had gaping holes down the side and was the reason that I never got beyond mid sole) and it is an invention of shear genius. Quick, simple, easy to remember and oh sooooo effective.

Then increased 4 stitches every other row 5 times, until there were a total of 40 stitches.

Gusset - increase 2 stitches every other row 9 times. This is more than average as a proportion of the total stitches but I seem to have fat ankles. Next time I might try more.

Heel..... guess! They are both subtly different, but worked in slip stitch. Next time I will take more of a note as I am going along because I have no idea now.

Then work 2 inches, and start increasing every 5th row.

See - pretty increases to fit round my bulging calf's! I would say fat calves, but they are the one bit of me that is actually mostly muscle, we do quite a bit of cycling and walking. After 10 lots of increases, start rib until the wool has nearly run out.

I cast off the second sock so many times. The first one I just did a standard cast off loosely and while it looked fine on, was very saggy when the sock was taken off. Resorting to my Knitters Handbook and deciding against a sewn bind off I tried one that involved decreasing stitches. Not quite stretchy enough. So armed with a needle I started off on my first attempt at a tubular bind off in double rib. It said I should be good at grafting (I am not) and able to do it with single rib (have never attempted) but I thought that after a glass of wine it would all be fine. And I am quite proud of myself - it's not 100% even but for a first attempt it's ok. And the actual method is again pure genius, neat, stretchy and so much less obvious than any other method.

I still might sew soles on these, but at the moment I am enjoying wearing them too much to bother (and I need to try and figure out where I can get some suitable leather, or decide to sacrifice some jeans or something).

I have nothing on my needles and I'm not sure what is coming next. Unusual for me, but the intense concerntration at the end of this project meant that I had no time to daydream about what was coming next.

Either a malabrigo jumper for me, or something out of rowanspun 4-ply or the black man jumper. Who know's which way the wind will blow!

My first ever finished sock!

2007-10-05T13:26:00.001-07:00

This is my first ever finished sock!

And I was so exited to have finally finished one that I immediatly cast on for the second. I have read a lot of second sock syndrome tales in the knitting blog world and feel it is important to maintain momentum at this stage. Normally, I have suffered from first sock syndrome, I once turned a heel on a pair of very short top down socks, but I never got anywhere near finishing one. So this, I feel, is me coming out and being presented to the knitting society at my debutante ball!

I made the socks toe up. I like the concept of knitting until one runs out of wool. This made them quite long, but that was sort of hoped for; I truly didn't have a clue how much wool there was in a skein and how much sock it would make.

But as you can see they are well above calf length, but not quite knee high. Being made of sort of worsted weight wool, with 3.75mm needles (a lot smaller than the suggested 4.5's, but I am intending on getting a fair amount of wear here and tighter normally lasts longer)

Most likely I am going to wear these as sort of sock slippers for lounging round the house. As you can see from the state of the unsanded and wood worm riddled floorboards in my sitting room this is going to give the poor things a certain amount of heavy wear. So much that I am seriously considering sewing some sort of either leather or something else hard wearing to the soles as protection. Kind of a more colourful and cheerful version of those nepali sock slipper things my mum wore in the days when I was young.

As you can see my second ball of wool is behaving rather differently to the first. I don't mind this at all, and the exitement of seeing what is going to happen to the pattern on the next repeat is great. Plus if I am going to get all into these handpainted skeins of pure luxury then it is just something you have to love.

But the whole sock knitting thing is mostly down to my recent discovery of the magic loop method of knitting in a circle. How great it is and how much easier is it to control than all those pointy and spikey dpn's? (Lots!) How did I not know about it until a few weeks ago? (Ignorance and not enough blog reading)

So, sock knitters of the world - I owe you all an apology. I thought you were all mad, and I am starting to have my suspicions that you were right all along. I still think I am going to knit jumpers, but the odd pair might be slipping into the equation every so often, and it gives me the perfect excuse to buy some lovely colourful and fantastic wool.

Beautiful Harebell Lace.......

2007-10-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

Another finished object has risen from the blocking bed....

Modelled on my apple tree....

And on my garden bench.

Finished Object Stats

Yarn - Laceweight Merino from Yarnsnob (100g skein - I had 11 yards left)

Needles - 3.75mm addi lace turbos, 80cm long

Pattern - Harebell lace Fichu from Victorian Lace Today - heavily modified (some explanation later on)

Cast on - 11 August

Finished - 27 September

Finished Dimensions - 13" by 64" after blocking

This is a picture of the origional pattern.

I took the harebell part of this chart, and knit 25 repeats of 4 sets of it across the scarf. These were offset so that the difference in stitch numbers was evened out.

I then knit on the picoty pointy border using the same attachment method as the myrtle leaf shawl.

And the combination makes a lovely squishy warm scarf that is just perfect to be a birthday present for my mum. Her birthday has already been (and she has no idea I have a blog) but I will deliver it in person in about a month!

The next project has been conceived - I have 2 skeins of Colinette Skye in neptune colourway, and I am going to make bedsocks!

Done

2007-09-27T13:21:00.000-07:00

I have just finished (having taken queen of froggers advice and knitted faster and faster) with 11 yards to spare. What a relief.

Now I just have to graft something that has slip 2 k3together and yarnovers in it.

See you in about 15 hours when I have done it wrong about 56000000 times. I hate grafting.

Am I going to make it?

2007-09-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

I have been frantically knitting all night - and I am now very very worried....

(I still love the border and think that the picot pointy edge is fantastic)

Though it doesn't totally come across in the picture, I have two corners and one end of edging still to apply, and there really isn't that much wool left. The former fat and squishy centre pull ball has only a few turns left. I have weighed on my kitchen scales, but that was inconclusive because they only weigh to 1g accuracy and that isn't accurate enough to be able to do any calculations. I tried. I can only hope........

See the photo from before the weekend - nearly 1/3 of the way up the side of the scarf and there is a comforting thickness to the ball. This edging is really really eating up the yards! I didn't expect to be anywhere near in this position considering that I had only used a smidge over half when I started the border.

Keep your fingers (and toes) crossed for me - I have to go to bed now, be up early in the morning to go on a site visit (and the forecast is good) and then I have tai chi in the evening (regular class followed by an extra hour with my teacher) so it is going to be ages until I can solve the will she/won't she mystery.

My (ever optimistic) view is that there is going to be JUST enough wool, and there is always my swatch!

Knackered.......

2007-09-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

I am really really really tired. I had a day off work today to put a concrete floor in our cellar.....

I know it is a really fuzzy dark photo, but I am too tired to do anything about it (like get up and walk to the cellar to take another one). Anyway, a very very nice man came with his concrete lorry with it's very long chute and dropped about 4m^3 through the window. So even though we didn't have to carry the concrete anywhere, there was an awful lot of shovelling involved. But it is a very good floor, flatter than I could have hoped (flatter than any other floor in our wonky old house) and means that we can put the wall back together (only half this room is ours, the other half belong to next door) and finally be my utility room.

This afternoon I was bushed, but managed 3 hours vegged out on the sofa, comforted by my lizard ridge blanket, adding edge to the harebell lace shawl. Nothing very interesting to say about it (the pattern is very pretty, I have made lots and lots of picots, even slip2 k3tog psso doesn't go too badly on the wonder addi turbo lace, and there are lots and lots of repeats to go).

Weekend Distraction

2007-09-16T09:28:00.001-07:00

Mostly this weekend I have been distracted from everything that I should be doing. I finally finished stripping, sanding and finishing a cupboard that I rescued, when clearly judging by the state of the washing pile I should have been sorting the washing and doing the ironing.

Then my brother in law phoned to announce that we have another niece as of yesterday. We have been designated as god parents, so on finding out that it was a girl of course needed to knit somethings. I am really looking forward to having a god daughter - so far everyone I know has managed to produce boys, so it was a welcome change to be able to knit in pink! I am really exited about being able so spoil/be a bad influence/knit for a girl.

Introducing the very pink stripy hat.........

Finished object statistics....

needles - 3mm addi turbos, 80cm long
Yarn - King Cole anti tickle merino in shades 1, 146, 67 and 29 (white, salmon, fuschia and a slightly pinky red).
Pattern - made up as I went along, inspired by one that I saw someone else knit, but I have no idea who it was.
Cast on this morning and took about 6 hours to complete - with a break to bake coffee and walnut cake in the middle.
Gauge - 7 stitches per inch
Finished circumference (unstretched) - 12.5 inches, which is sort of large newborn size.

The pattern was really simple. Cast on 90 stitches, and join in the round. Because this was always going to be a fairly simple little project I thought I would try out some new skills and so knit it all using the magic loop technique.

Knit 1.5 inches in red. The colour sequence goes salmon, white, fuscia and then back to red.

The stitch pattern is 1 row purl and then 5 rows knit. This makes very pleasing little bumpy coloured lines where the colours change. I also slipped the first stitch after the purl row to make a sort of jogless join.

Work until the desired length (in my case the red starter row and the four stripes) - 90 stitches.

The decreases are all worked on the last row of the stripe. Change colour (to salmon for me) purl one row, knit 4 rows and then work one round of knit 4, k2tog (75 stitches).

Change colour (white), purl 1 row, knit 4 rows and then work one round of knit 3, k2tog (60 stitches)

Change colour (fuschia), purl 1 row, knit 4 rows, and work one round of knit 2, k2tog (45 stitches)

Change colour (red), purl one row, knit 4 rows and then work one round of knit 1, K2tog (30 stitches).

Change colour (salmon), purl one row, knit 4 rows, and then work another round of knit 1, k2tog (20 stitches)

Change colour (white), purl one row, knit 4 rows, and then again work a round of k2tog, k1 (this will end with a k2tog) (13 stitches)

Change colour (fuschia), purl one row, knit 4 rows. Work a round of K2tog, k1 again ending with a k2tog (8 stitches). Knit 4 rounds. K2tog four times (4 stitches). Work about 2 inches of 4 stitch i-cord, break thread and pass through the 4 stitches pulling tight to secure.

The russian splice does have one fantastic advantage, which was that the only finishing required was to darn in the end from the casting on. I generally thought it was a bit of a pain in the ass, but once I had got into the rhythm it wasn't too bad. It is worth a bit of practice of working out where the join is going to fall and getting the colour change in the right place. Bear in mind that it did tend to move a bit on the next round for me. By the top of the hat it was all looking pretty good though.

I did like the magic loop as well, not so sure I don't prefer 2 circulars, but this did have the advantage of only needing on needle and not having so much dangle. Definitely more portable.

The hat is great fun though, and I think it is going to be repeated in a slightly larger size for my brother's girlfriend this christmas. The decreases worked exactly how I intended in that they give a point at the top of the hat but aren't silly santa hat shape. I might even quite fancy one myself (in green though.....)

Much progress has been made on the harebell scarf as well...... another few repeats of the main pattern brought me to the point where I had to start experimenting with the edging.

I had a look at a few books for some ideas, but in the end I decided to use the outside portion of the origional chart. Miles and miles of picots ahead! I am applying it using the same join as on the myrtle leaf shawl - which is joined on the front of the scarf rather than the normal method on the back. I quite like the effect though. What do you think?

Lots of shopping......

2007-09-13T13:48:00.005-07:00

If I had a camera this post would be full of photos.......

I bought a lovely pair of shoes in the sales this summer. It was total love at first sight and even though they were green I just had to have them. Green and olive with flowers on them.

But then I realised that I dont have very many green clothes at all, so the natural reaction was to go yarn shopping and think about starting me a jumper. I found some lovely green malabrigo worsted weight in lettuce, with a skein of oliva for some contrast. No definate plan, but I'll get there!

And then today at lunch time I accidentally discovered a fantastic felt handbag from one of my favourite shops.... (no picture on the web of the bag, but it is totally fantastic) and I am thanking the god of credit cards that the red boots werent available in. my size (they had a pair of the knee high ones in non patent red leather - divine).

On the knitting front plenty of hours put in, and another 10 repeats on the harebell lace scarf to show for it. I am half way along the skein, and I think another 5 repeats should be enough before I have to decide what border to do. I am back to thinking that the outside section of the origional harebell lace pattern could be knitted on in all it picot glory, having been round the houses a bit on other edging possibilities. I will have another think in 5 repeats time!

Secret Hat for my little sister

2007-09-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

I have finally finished something - a hat for my little sister for her birthday. In fact this is a minor miracle, because there are still 3 weeks to go until her birthday, so this time there is a vague chance that she will get it in time!

Finished object statistics......
Wool - some random 4-ply shetland wool bought very cheaply from ebay, in Bright Pink and Bright red. Also the end of a skein of sock yarn that I dyed myself ages ago.
Needles - addi turbo circulars, 3mm in various lengths.
Pattern - made up as I went along (more about that later)
Cast on - earlier this summer
Cast off - yesterday!
Tension - 8 stitches and 8 rows per inch

The pattern was remarkably simple and went like this:

Cast on 160 stitches using a provisional cast on in pink wool and join in the round. Purl one round, and then knit one round. Then make up some patterns using a piece of graph paper (making sure you can fit the repeats into 160 stitches). I went for naughts and croses, and then some lettering (can you guess what my sister is called) to add a personal touch, and then another repeat of the naughts and crosses.

The top section of the hat is knit from a very simple pattern with a 4 row repeat, diagonal crossing lines in pink. This is nice and easy to remember! When the desired length is reached (I did just a smidgen less than 5") place 8 markers evenly round the circumference of the hat (every 20 stitches).

Decrease round - knit to 2 stitches before the marker maintaining the pattern, k2tog in red. Repeat 8 times.

Knit one round in pattern (making the stitch before each marker red). When there are too few stitches for the 40cm needle move to knitting either on 2 circulars, or dpn's or a magic loop.

Repeat these two round 9 more times.

Work 10 decrease rounds. Break yarn, pass through the 8 remaining stitches and pull tight.

Place the stitches from the provisional cast on on the 40cm needle (picking up one extra stitch at the join) - you should have 160 stitches, and join the sock yarn. Mine was 100% cashmere and very soft, but choose something that will prevent any itchy forehead (cotton or silk would have preferred but I didnt have any in the stash) and preferably unsuitably bright!

For the first round, knit 8 k2tog. Repeat 15 more times. (144 stitches)

Knit in the round for some depth - I chose to end when I reached a stripe of plain knitting in the hat, just above the lettering. Whip stitch the live stitches to the purl bumps on the inside of the hat, remembering to miss out 1 purl bump in every 10 to make up for the decreased stitches.

Block and wear (or give to someone as a present)!

A week minus husband

2007-09-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

So I survived my end of week working in Belfast (only just mind, it was a close run thing - I got hideously lost driving round some one way nightmare looking for my hotel, but I got there in the end) and made it back home. In a drive to only take hand luggage I left my knitting behind so it feels like weeks since I have even touched the needles.

But the good news on that front is that I have a whole 2 weeks mostly to myself and so there should be plenty of scope for sitting down and getting stuff progressed.

I am going to start with finishing my sister6's birthday hat, and then fingers crossed make plenty of progress on the harebell lace scarf. Having had an enforced break I am now raring to go!

But no pictures for a while because of course himself has naffed off with 'our' camera. Hrumph.

The blanket bites!

2007-08-29T10:43:00.000-07:00

Last night, in the time it took me to down load the photos from the camera and write the post, the blanket monster bit Dr Sweetpea........

Not knitting (visitors next week so trying to organise the hovel and wash the spare sheets) and I have to go to Belfast again so the next few days have been hecticed. Getting back on Saturday (grrrrrrrrr) so the weekend is only going to be 3/4 of a weekend.

Lizard Ridge Returns

2007-08-28T11:18:00.001-07:00

Now here is a finished object from a while ago (well, earlier this year)........

Introducing Lizard Ridge Afghan.......

Needles - 5.5mm addi turbo circulars
Yarn - Kureyon in lots of colours (I don't have the ball bands so I don't know)
I made 25 squares and each one used an entire ball, so there would have been 25 balls.
Cast on - some time in March
Finished - last week.......

......because even though the knitting was done a good few months ago, I discovered that though I do a lot of crafty things and consider that I am relatively dextrous, I can't crochet for toffee. So I made a swatch and had a few goes of doing the edging, but the tension was all over the place and it looked dreadful. But then a fantastic friend (who I met on the Archers discussion board, yes I am old before my time) offered to do it for me. So all I had to do was pack it in the box, and last week it arrived back home fully and neatly and perfectly finished.

I am never doing crochet again!

I love this afghan. I am amazed that I ever started to make it. I have always thought that the colours in kureyon were amazing, but I really wouldnt ever wear anything made out of it. And I have always thought that the miles and miles of stitches (mostly stocking stitch) made afghans a really silly knitting idea. But there was something about the combination of two things that I didnt really like which produced a pattern that was sublime, charming, seductive and utterly compelling.

Knitting in squares meant that each individual piece was portable, and at the end of each one you got the feeling of finishing a whole object! The sewing wasn't too bad..... I like mattress stitching, and actually enjoyed it (I spent one whole weekend sewing miles and miles).

And the best thing about it is that this was the knitting that convinced Dr Sweetpea that it was all a good idea. He thought I was dotty when I started, and continued to tease throughout, but the first monday I came home after it was finished I found him curled up in an arm chair snuggled under it and he was converted. It is now really hard to pursuade him out from under the dreaded blanket monster!

Wedding Photos!

2007-08-27T11:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos from the wedding...

The bride looking beautiful and wearing the Myrtle Leaf Shawl

And again....

And again - wasnt the weather lovely?

And there was plenty of alcohol! The shawl was admired by many, appreciated by the bride who had to stand in the shade for photos for quite some while, and it looked lovely and went really well with the dress. Well done kerrie for the dying and well done me for thinking of it in the first place!

A sneaky little bit of knitting.....

2007-08-20T12:16:00.001-07:00

Well....... I really really wasn't going to taking any knitting with me this weekend, but the harebell lace scarf snuck it's way into my bag and I accidentally ended up taking it with me. And as the weather was awful on Saturday there was enough time to finish a few repeats! I am really liking the way the colours are making stripes across the whole scarf.......

A dry blocked measurement shows that each repeat of the pattern is just over 2" long, so I am looking at doing about 25 repeats before thinking about a border. 8 down so only 17 to go. About 2/3 of the way there!

But the hotel was lovely, the food was totally fantastic even though the portions were so enormous that we both ended up feeling rather bloated. The breakfast included hot chocolate that was 50/50 milk and melted chocolate. Very very lovely, but rather rich for first thing in the morning. Anyway, if you are ever hungry and in the highlands and fancy a really nice place to stay in the highlands then I would defiantly recommend Grants!

This week is going to be low on exiting knitting - I am off to belfast for a night, and that is going to disrupt things totally. Sometime I really need to graft that other sleeve or I am going to have 2 odd lengthed sleeves and that is going to look most odd.

Was it worth it?

2007-08-16T13:54:00.001-07:00

Please tell me that.....

..... this..........

......looks better than this?

Because that extra 4 repeats of twisted stitch rib took most of last night to knit (20 mins) and graft on (2000000 hours). Only one more to go, and then I really am going to call this cardigan finished.

Off on holiday for the weekend! Yey! It's a surprise for Dr Sweetpea, who sort of half believes me when I say that we are going camping in caithness (flat peat bog country) for the weekend.

Putting off the inevitable

2007-08-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

You know what? We are having opposite weather to most of the rest of britain at the moment. Today - lovely, pleasant, sunny with fluffy white clouds and plenty of midges. Most of the rest of Britain - raining and windy.

But one has to take advantage when you can, so I spent a couple of very lovely hours chilling out with my tai chi mates (or the Bellfield Ninjas as we like to call ourselves) doing some practice. It has become clear to be that I need to practice more. I do try, but the weather really needs to cooperate at least a little bit. That sounds like a rather pathetic excuse - what I really need to do it get my arse in gear to tidy a space big enough to practice and then just get on and do it.

Apart from that I am spending time putting things off:

I need to knit some extra sleeve for Meagidh, and graft them on.
I need to sew on the last couple of belt loops on the kilt, take it to the dry cleaners and get it pressed.
I badly need to get out a very old WIP fairisle hat I am making for my sister (for her birthday which isnt that long away)
I need to go shopping (we don't even have a tin of tomatoes for pasta sauce for dinner)
I need to do the ironing
I need to hoover the bedroom and hang out the washing
I could even knit lace, but that means reading off the screen because I havent got round to printing the chart.....

But instead I think I am going to hang around doing not an awful lot, catch up with the archers (bless listen again on BBC Radio 4), wait for Dr Sweetpea to cook for me after going to the corner shop for tomatoes and look at all my new yarn. I wonder if the ironing will do itself if I wait long enough?

But my sweetpeas smell divine.

Racing for the finish line

2007-08-13T11:06:00.002-07:00

Well, trust me to like the most expensive buttons in the shop..... (and decide to use 12 of them)

But I did really like them.......

The shoulder shaping worked really well though........

But the sleeves are a little bit too short so I think I am going to knit 4 repeats extra and graft it on to the bottom. At least most it fits.

On a wool shopping front, a great big pile of black merino dk arrived and is going to form the basis of the man jumper. But I don't think I am going to start that for a little while - this weekend is his birthday and we are off for the weekend (no details, it's a surprise). As it is his birthday I am going to try very very very hard not to knit anything and just spend some time chilling together.

Anyway - the yarn snob commented yesterday that she has never knitted with lace yarn. How can she bear to have all that lovely squishy merino goodness in divine colours and not be tempted to knit it? I really really encourage anyone who is too scared to have a go - a lot of patterns are only made of yarn overs and k2tog/ssk - with plain pearl on every other row. All you need is to make a swatch, read the chart carefully, count your stitches lots and always use addi lace turbo's! Be brave, it's worth it.

Pretty Yarn makes Pretty Harebells

2007-08-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

Well - what a fantastically productive knitting weekend. The weather today was (as forecast) totally pish, and so I haven't even left the house! I really should do some tai chi practice: I am feeling the effects of mostly sitting and lying around. Maybe tomorrow morning if the rain has stopped.

It has been quite social though- a work colleague came round for the afternoon and we baked cakes in honour of his birthday. The nutella cake from Nigella's domestic goddess (how can any combination of nutella, nuts, chocolate, butter and eggs go wrong) and a carrot cake. He really enjoyed it and so did I. It was lovely to bake with a novice who was enjoying himself and was fascinated by all the funny things about baking that I take for granted. He was transfixed by adding eggs to oil and sugar - the mixture emulsifies and thickens quite drastically. And making ganache was fun too. After the cake making bit we drank plenty of tea while they cooked and cooled, and I didn't even have to do the washing up. I did remember to make little cupcakes of each so that we could have a sneaky try of them both though. We get to eat the big ones at work tomorrow.

And plenty of phone calls. I wonder if I normally get so many calls but we are just always out?

There was plenty of knitting action though.....

The harebell lace experiment has got about 1.5 repeats done. Somewhere the inner mathematician has let me down - I calculated that I would have enough stitches for 5 rows of harebells, but somehow when it came to starting the pattern there were exactly the right number for 4. Ho hum, it was obviously meant to be!

The pattern is working out really nicely. I discovered that the printer doesnt work, so I have had to be looking at the screen while knitting, but I will take advantage of work facilities to fix that tomorrow. I am really glad that the harebells fit together so well though, this is the first time I have attempted to totally change a pattern so I wasn't that sure of it working out.

I am knitting on addi turbo lace needles - 3.75mm. This gives a lovely stitch definition to the stockinette sections, but still nice yo's. The needles totally rock, all the others I swatched with were ditched after a couple of rows, so I was glad that this size worked. I only have these and a 4mm pair in the collection, but that might change sometime soon.

And Meagaidh is also doing well. I have slogged through acres of plain knitting, ripped and reknitted the armhole shapings, done (and redone) some short row shaping at the top and picked up what feels like 1000 stitches for the button band. I am reckoning on completion tomorrow if I can find some appropriate buttons. I am quite taken by the idea of nice wooden ones, but have no idea if I will be able to get them in town. The craft shopping potential in Inverness is slightly limited (one craft shop that sells some random mostly acrylic wool, crappy needles and a few novelty buttons and one haberdashery that is fine for sewing supplies, but the wool is cheap and mostly not what I want to knit with) but I want to wear this in 2 weeks so I will have to put up with what I can find.

Pretty Yarn in the post

2007-08-11T12:02:00.001-07:00

I got home yesterday to find a lovely parcel in the post........

Yes - that is order from the Yarn snob. Fantastic!

I immediately set about winding the pale blue skein and swatching and hatching for harebell lace. Here is one repeat of the pattern from victorian lace......

The general plan is to have 5 repeats of the harebell pattern, with 2 of them offset by about half a repeat to try and even out the width variation (the lace varies from about 6 stitches to about 16) so that is the main challenge. My inner mathematician is thinking of all sorts of complicated ideas to make it work, but who knows.

Fortunately the husband is away and I have the whole of tomorrow (when the weather forecast is bad enough to make me want to go into hibernation) to play with it and hopefully get one pattern repeat done! I have miles and miles of stockinette to do on meagaidh for if I get brain fry.

Man Jumpers

2007-08-09T01:45:00.000-07:00

So.... I have quizzed Dr Sweetpea about making him a jumper. This is partly in an attempt to make him appreciate my knitting a bit more (the blanket was a big success in this respect) but also because I do knit things for other people so why not my husband? I saw lots of quite exiting man jumpers on the internet - I was having a little fanasty about a lovely tweedy number with loads of complicated and exiting cables - but I really didnt know what he would wear. In a moment of boredom at work I sent him a little questionnaire.

Jumper or cardigan? Cardigan

If cardigan, zip or buttons? Zip

Dark colours or bright colours? Dark

Main colour - blue, black, grey, brown, red, green - Black

Stripes or not? Bright Stripes

Position of stripes:
All over
One/2 across chest – 2 across chest
Edges

Colour of stripes? red and white

Colour patterns (like fairisle) or not? No

Plain stocking stitch or ribbed? Ribbed

Cables or not? No

Wool - thick, middling or thin? Middling

Wool - tweedy or smooth? Smooth

So it looks as though I am going to be knitting ribbed cardigan until the cows come home! Further exploration of the concept last night (including showing him some photos) indicated that he did really really want the above jumper. I might make it a bit more interesting by placing the zip assymetrically, but dont know yet. In the future he could be tempted into some nice tweedy wool, didnt mind garter stitch borders, still didnt like cables (I am going to work on this one a bit) and wouldn't mind some fairisle as long as it was really subtle and not too bright.

At least that gives me some boundaries within which to work!

One small step forward.....

2007-08-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

It seems like life is conspiring against me getting very much done. Last night was spent looking after Dr Sweetpea - after his work jolly, he went for a 4 hour run in the wind and rain, got mildly hyperthermic, got down really late and generally broke himself. Silly boy. So he needed tending to, feeding and general attention.

A few more lines of meagaidh.......

I have managed to knit both sleeves and join them to the body. I am rather fascinated by the twist stitch rib.......

I have been stripping my table too. The top has been stripped and the leather polished. I dont know whether I am going to leave the table looking distressed ish or sand it down to make it nice shiny wood. I quite like it looking battered, but Dr Sweetpea disagrees!

The decision can be left for a while though because I still have the legs to strip.

Ramblings

2007-08-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

Hmmmmmm. It's one of those evenings. I am at home on my own (husband is on a work jolly, no sorry, I'm sure he is having to work very hard) and I am hiberbating. I am so jealous of all you lot way down south, I keep hearing that you are having the hottest day of the year. Well, I was on a site visit an hour north, up a hill, and it was 6C, 60mph gusts of wind, persistent drizzle interspersed with heavier rain and I got to spend a lovely couple of hours looking at the drainage on the site not working. Fan-flipping-tastic.

On the other hand it did mean that I got to call by the great second hand furniture place - and accidentally bought a little table and a cupboard. Which means that so far this evening I have been distracted by stripping paint off the table. I have done the whole top - stripped, washed, sanded a bit and waxed. It is going to look fantastic when I am done, but I have to face telling husband when he gets back.

I have been thinking about knitting a lot though and am sort of thinking about starting lots and lots of things:

Socks - a while back I had a food dye experiment (nice but not exactly what I was aiming for) and so I have 100g of sock yarn to play with. I am sort of tempted by the idea of making a pair of jaywalkers, but I know that I hate knitting with dpns. I might treat myself to a couple of pairs of addi lace turbo circulars and give that a whirl. If I don't like socks done like that then I am going to give up on the idea for a while.

Scarves/lace - I had an accident on theyarnsnob's etsy page today. I searched for laceweight yarn, saw a lovely lovely blue one that would be great for the harebell scarf, but there was another skein of slightly darker blue and a great variegated pink one which accidentally fell into my shopping basket. And I already have the hipknits silk.......

Blanket/afgan - I made a lizard ridge blanket a while back, and it was the first thing that husband ever properly appreciated.
I never get to use it (at the moment it is away at a friends house for the crochet edging application - she is far more talented at crochet then me!) so I am thinking about making one for me. I am liking the idea of a really multicoloured mitre square one, or maybe even a different kureyon one. As yet no yarn purchased, but this is definatly on the to knit list.

Christmas/birthday presents - birthday season abouds in my family in october - so knitting various things for my sister and my mum. I also have a brother, his girlfriend and their baby to make presents for. One thing I was thinking of was a felted entrelac bag made of leftover kureyon.

Jumpers - I really want to make a jumper for husband - just because all menswear is so uninspired and he deserves something warm and wooly for this winter. For me, I also have 2 jumpers worth of Rowan rowanspun soft, a basket full of 4-ply shetland wool, plenty of rowan calmer in various colours and a jumper's worth of pink silk dk weight that need stuff doing to it.

So I am just going to spend plenty of time sanding and stripping paint, see how long I can stay faithful to meagaidh and if I finish her before the wedding. No photos today - nothing really interesting (unless you are interested in photos of drains not working in a cloud on a scottish hill) and it is getting dark. The only knitting progress is that I am nearly ready to join on the second sleeve - only 20 rounds of plain to go.

All in the finishing

2007-08-04T03:56:00.001-07:00

Kilt making is just like knitting really - you sew and sew and then you have pleats. When the pleats are done you think you must nearly be there. But no, not anywhere near, first you have to do all the faffy finishing.

You need to sew down the pleats at the waistline...... (notice that you have to lift the back of each pleat slightly so that they dont hang down and show when it is worn)

you need to tack the pleats down at strategic places - for me that was along the white lines.

You have to line the kilt with 2 layers of lining, one thick lining (can be hessian, but I used plain cotton with interfacing ) and one that is comfortable against your husbands delicate bottom. I wouldn't want to cause bottom chafing.
You have to make belt loops and you have to make little straps to hold the buckles on. At this stage I have to admit that I was making it up as I went along, but it seems fairly secure and doesn't look that bad.
And sew on the leather straps......

And make a little fringe for the front apron.......

And then it's time for the grand trying on............

As you can see this morning there was some enforced shopping for kilt socks (there really really isn't enough time for me to make them and I don't think that I like knitting socks anyway), a pin, a sporran and a sporran chain. We are still debating whether a belt is needed, but getting husband to buy even this much has to be counted as a major victory.

All I need to do now is take it to be pressed (apparently it really is worth it, and the pleats will remain for ever if it is done properly) and then that is his outfit sorted for the wedding.

And it leaves me just a little bit of time to sort out the cardigan.

But a new project looms..... this is the harebell lace fichu from Victorian Lace Today. Now, I dont think that I am ever likely to want to wear a little lacy collar, but fundamentally the interesting and lovely lace border is just knitted on, and I reckon that it can easily be altered knitting a scarf. It might just be the perfect answer for the left over skein of lovely silk from Kerrie at Hipknits. Or maybe an excuse to get some lovely harebell blue lovelieness.......

Kilt making 101

2007-07-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

OK....... kilt making and pleat sewing has begun in earnest.

This is a photo of the sewn pleats on the inside of the kilt. There is an awful lot of fabric involved, so you cut the pleat back to 1" at the top to reduce the bulk.

My kilt maths mean:

waist - 76cms
hips - 90 cms.

All subsequent measurements are taken at the hip and the waist bit is just taken in a bit to end up at the right size. Hopefully.

The front apron is 5/12 of 90 cms - so about 38cms. And taken in about 2.5cms at the top on each side. Each pleat measures about 2cms, meaning there are 26 of them. They taper a bit at the top so that the waist measurement is right. I didnt measure this at all - just guessed. So that mean it turned out about 1cm too big round the waist but I think that is going to be fine. THere is going to be a belt worn with it in the end so there is no falling down danger. All the sewing so far has been done by hand - the routine is pin a pleat (so that the pattern matches) and sew. Pin the next pleat and sew. When draped around Dr Sweetpea they look like this.....

And a veiw of the front looks like this.

Now... you see that tiny little waist? Well there are about 7.6m of fabric wrapped round that! The pattern repeat on this tartan is 20cms so there is an awful lot of body in the back.

And I found out that I hate sewing with a thimble, but my middle finger on the right hand is now rather sore and has an attractive red dent in the end of it. Knitting is so much more civilised.

The next task is to sew all the pleats to each other at the hip - with the inside end of each one lifted a little so that they dont show when they hang down. Tomorrow I am going to take it into work for an inspection and further instructions on how to make the trim at the front, line, stiffen, fix buckles and straps, make holes for the straps, think about belt loops, waist band etc. etc. etc.

The wedding is on 25th August - so thats 24 days and counting!

Turquoise/blue lace silk

2007-07-30T15:14:00.000-07:00

Just a note for those asking about the blue/turquoise laceweight silk I have left over - there is something that looks very very similar in the hipknits shop at the moment. Called toucan lace silk..... http://www.hipknits.co.uk/shop.php?crn=1&rn=960&action=show_detail

If I didnt already have 3 skeins I would be shopping there right now!

Phew!

2007-07-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

Well this weekend was the hen do and it was very very fun. There was sunshine, and champagne and walks and picnics and boats on the lake. It was great to catch up with lots of people that I really dont see often enough. And most importantly the bride loved the shawl, and it was all very lovely.

I didnt get that much done, mostly I tried to catch up on some sleep on the train rather than knitting. On the way down I was accosted by a very chatty german couple, and I am rather too rusty at german to be able to have an involved conversation and get very much knitting done at the same time. I think my next holiday abroad will have to be to germany so that I can get some practice done.

The kilt has had lots of pins stuck in it and I am going to try sewing some of the pleats this evening. I bought a thimble in honor of all this hand stitching.

No photos, because nothing has progressed enough to look interesting!

But thank you everybody who left comments - it is lovely to log on to read them al.

Busy weekend.... and an even busier week

2007-07-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

Well........

The guests arrived and we had fun and now they are gone. We have had 2 lots of friends to stay so there was too much drinking, too much food, plenty of fun in the sun (sorry to those of you who are living in slightly damper areas), days scrambling, a day sea kayaking, beaches, pubs and tea shops. All in all a perfect weekend.

There was time for knitting though, and the cardigan is progressing apace. I am nearly at the armholes now, only another 10 rows or so to go. This weekend I am going to the hen do, so I have 6 hours on the train to progress this.

But I have a distraction. A really really really big and important and urgent distraction. Here is a picture........

Yes - that's tartan. That's 3.7m of Strome double width Graham of Montrose Modern tartan. And yes, I am making a kilt for the husband. The above photo is the really scary cut the tartan to length tear - there is no hem on the bottom of a kilt so this bit is quite important. So, I have torn 2 lengths that are 58cm long.

Here I have assembled the tools of attack - pins, tacking thread, notebook, calculator, tape measure and a print out of the instructions that I found on the internet. I am not doing this entirely blind, the secretary at work used to be a kilt maker and she is giving lots and lots of advice, and has shown me a half finished kilt so that I know what it looks like.

And here I have made a bit of exploratory progress. I have cut the front apron and pinned some pleats. If the pleats were straight then everything would be nice and simple, but because the desired waist is 77cm and the desired hip measurement is 90cm, you have to taper each and every one of them. These are also a little bit to wide. I am doing 2cm pleats (each one taking one repeat of the tartan - so about 20cm) and the pattern has to match up. Nightmare.

Off to bake brownies and make some supper.

Myrtle Leaf Pictures

2007-07-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

So the Myrtle Leaf Shawl has been unpinned from the spare bed and taken for a little photo shot in the sun.

And here is the left over silk, including the fantastic green/turquoise/blue colourway that is being saved for another time. I fell so in love with it that I decided to make it into a shawl for me! I am going to make something for T at work with the left over cream/pink colour - she was coveting it when it arrived in the office.

New Cardigan Plan

2007-07-20T09:03:00.000-07:00

Introducing the nascent Meagaidh.......

So.... This is my plan for a cardigan to wear to the aforementioned wedding, with last summers dress of desire and a new pair of shoes.

The plan is cabled ribbing to under the bust, then stocking stitch with dramatic increases to give a sort of gathered effect rather than normal bust shaping (I am well endowed enough to always need to add bust shaping), gathered in a bit just below the neckline. All closely fitting, with maybe an inch or so of ease. I think I am going to cast on in one peice and then try to knit it all seamlessly, picking up stitches for the button band at the and making mitred corners...

I am going to call it Meagaidh (pronounced sort of like Meggie) after this photo - taken on the one of the first properly snowy scottish days this winter, from the top of a lovely hill called Craig Meagaidh. I just love it when everything up here turns white for the winter.

I have swatched and tonight I will measure. I'll also try and snatch some more photos of the Myrtle Leaf while the sun is shining - yes, sorry to all of you having flash floods in the south, but for the first time since forever it is sunny here in the north. And I am going to have to go outside to the park and enjoy it, and should be able to get a good bit of practice done for the silent flute form (tai chi) I am learning at the moment.

Anyway, time to get out and enjoy the good weather!

Myrtle Leaf Finished and Blocking

2007-07-18T12:23:00.000-07:00

Well........

We have a Myrtle Leaf Shawl!

Round the corner....

Centre Panel......

So we have a finished item, and it's huge. I really dont mind admiting that this was the catalyst for starting a blog - the knitting I think I am the most proud of.

Some Statistics:

needles - 4mm Addi Turbo Lace
yarn - Hipknits laceweight silk. Custom dyed to match my friends wedding dress. 2 skeins, with maybe only about 10m left.
pattern - Myrtle Leaf Shawl from Victorian Lace Today
alterations - I found the errata on the internet and they are very very important - there is a mistake in the chart that means the leaves dont join up! And I joined on fewer repeats of the edging along the top and bottom (doing every other attachment to 2 stitches rather than one)
cast on - 27th June
cast off - 18th July

I am super super exited about this shawl. It looks fantastic, the yarn is shiny and silky and a lovely lovely colour. The alteration to the pattern meant that a: I had enough yarn and b: the edging sits much more evenly along the top. I am going to make a lovely box at the weekend and parcel it up with nice tissue paper and then I will truely be done.

I just hope that J likes it - it is a surprise and will be presented to her next weekend at her hen do, hence the big rush. We live quite a way apart and so that is the only time I am going to see her before the big moment.

And the exitement, I got my first comment. Now that means someone is actually interested in my rambling.

The next plan......
I have 12 balls of white Jaeger Merino DK, which I am about to start swatching in the hope of making me a cardigan of some description!

First past the post

2007-07-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

OK.... first post on my new blog. Any bets on how long it is going to last me?

Anyway, on to the knitting, which is probably going to be the main topic of discussion for a while. On the needles at the moment, and frantically trying to complete, is the myrtle leaf shawl from Victorian Lace Today, knitted with some lovely silk yarn from Kerrie at Hipknits.

I am loving knitting this - it is the first time I have knitted real lace, and it is very exiting. The silk yarn is treacherous though, drop one stitch and before you have blinked there is a great big run down a few rows. In the centre panel this wasnt too much bother really, I was going nice and slowly and so I only had one major whoopsie. The biggest catastrophe was that I dropped a stitch when knitting on the border round the top. And I was at least half way down the next side before I noticed and so I had to take a whole section of the border off, pick up the stitches, faff around with a tiny crochet hook trying to fix the mistake and then knit the border back. Dr Sweetpea (husband) kept trying to talk to me while this was going on and so that was rather stressful. Only a little bit more to go now though and I am there.

Pictures will follow soon.... I need to recapture the camera and take some!

Off to finish that border