Oh My! An update?

There isn't that much to report really, though I thought it was about time for a post. I haven't been doing much since finishing the gloves apart from more work on the lace. However, I am pleased to report that the lace has just crossed the halfway mark and is actually moving much faster after having memorised the pattern! Wooo!

Haven't been doing any spinning at all. I decided to knit up the laceweight alpaca into a adapted branching out scarf from knitty. After two repeats I have decided I don't like it though, so it's being frogged.

I also have a couple of photos of that pinwheel jacket that I've been talking about since the very beginning of this blog, but have never actually shown here. Here it is! You can see the start of one sleeve there on the right. The left is still on the stitch holder. It was quite interesting there for a while, as I started the sleeve before I started the trim, so for a fair while I was juggling a pile of knitting that had three balls of yarn and 9 needles attached.

Pinwheel Jacket

Edging detail

The edging is applied i-cord. One of those things I had never done, couldn't work out from looking at the pattern but suddenly made an amazing amount of sense when the time came. Very pleased with that.

Also, I'd like to say Hello to Mrs Chris. Because this is my blog and I can!

Hello! And hello to the girls too!

Rambling...

Well, I haven't been well, hence the lack of lace.

It's also been bloody cold of late so I decided to knit myself a pair of the fetching gloves from knitty.com. Or at least a variation of them. Mine have 6 repeats of the cable at the cuff, two at the knuckles and the thumbs are a tad longer. I knitted nineteen to the dozen to get them done by Friday night too, with the plan being to go see Pirates 3 with a group of friends and I didn't want to have cold hands.

And here they are done
Turned out I didn't need them. I came down the the flu on Friday afternoon and so didn't really get to go anywhere. I spent the night curled up feeling sick instead. I'm really quite irritated about that. I finished the gloves at 4:30 with an hour to spare before I had to leave. I've also done appallingly little work on the lace because I just cant concentrate. Instead I'm doing more work on the pinwheel jacket. I'm past halfway on the edging and then I have 1 2/3 sleeves to go. It's good, mindless knitting and it's getting me closer to finishing the pinwheel, something I'll be very happy about. I'll also be happy when the lace is done, but my lace mojo just isn't flowing.

It's amazing how things start to pile up. I have a huge pile of stuff, including the pinwheel jacket and the lace, I also have a few projects planned, like a hat I'm designing for a friend's baby, a jumper for me, and I have some sock yarn to arrive early next month because I signed up for the tofutsies yarn club over at ecoyarns.com.au. I'm looking forward to all this, I really like knitting socks. There's something extremely satisfying about wearing you knitted yourself, even if it's something small.

I just realised I haven't done nearly as much spinning as I would have liked by now. Dammit.

And there's uni work to do...

I think I'll go curl up on the lounge with my mindless knitting instead for the moment. At least until I feel better.

edit: photo added on 22 June. Yes, they're fuzzy. They were fished out of the boot of my car post-camping trip for the photo to be taken.

Alpaca yarn, lace and accounting

I have posted about the alpaca I'm spinning up before, and I now have 100 yards of laceweight yarn hanging to dry in my shower! I'm not sure what I'm doing with it as yet, but I have a feeling I can do whatever I like with it, having 300g of the lovely stuff! I'm thinking shawl, but I'm not sure about what style yet.

Also, the bit about this alpaca is it's the first fibre that I'm preparing myself. I got it as 300g of fleece shoved into a ziploc bag. I'm carding it and spinning it from the rolag, and washing it after spinning using woolwash. It's coming up very nicely, though I'd forgotten how long it takes to spin laceweight, but then, all the laceweight spinning I'd done up till now had been on a spindle. But I never got 100 yards of it off a spindle, I always got a tad distracted before then

No photos as yet forthcoming, but the other news is I might be obtaining a decent digital camera soonish!

I've also picked up the alpine lace again since I finished my uni assignment. i'm not quite halfway there yet though.

I have to confess, I enjoyed accounting. It was nice, and neat, and everything had it's place and it was relaxing. I'm liking the same qualities in my lace. Every stitch has it's place in relation to the ones that came before it, the stitches here will make up a rose leaf later, the placement of each stitch culminates in a piece of art

Thus endeth tonight's rambling

Finished Object!

I have finished a garment! The shrug mentioned in previous posts (pattern found here) is now adorning my shoulders and it's very nice indeed. The tencel yarn feels wonderful against the skin too.

As for the things I've learnt while knitting it, well there are a couple.

1. Don't knit late at night (i.e. after midnight) when stressed and very tired. That's how you get "lace pattern adaptations") Following advice, I continued on with the 'adaptation' and it looks just fine
2. Do not, under any circumstances, continue knitting past that "adaptation" on to your first ever attempt at raglan shaping that's also to be done while keeping the lace pattern correct (that's right, that really easy lace pattern you've already managed to foul up). That's how you develop your skill at fudging the edges! However, it did turn out just fine anyway
   

All that considered, I'm still very happy with it. I did use different sized needles to, if not match the gauge, at least make it fit better than it would have otherwise. Sleeves knitted on 5mm, body on 4.5mm and ribbing on 4mm. All hail the knitpicks options set!

Also, the panic mentioned here? Not required. I didn't need that extra ball of yarn from a different dyelot. It's now sitting around waiting for something to occur... Perhaps a mini-mobius scarf... The yarn is certainly soft enough

And here are some photos for your pleasure, courtesy of Nikki


All things considered, I'm going to call this one a win

Sleeves, lace and books

The lace has been put on hold for the next few days. I'm finishing the shrug, dammit! I'm currently halfway through the second sleeve and I'm trying to decide what size needles to use for the body, considering the yarn I'm using doesn't quite match that used in the pattern... Anyway, I'll have to make the decision at some point tomorrow probably!

The lace is at the same place it was in the previous post.

As for books, I got two new books and a pile of yarn in the mail on Monday morning. The books are the twisted sisters sock workbook and fitted knits. And now I have a pile of things to add to my to do list... Oh, how terrible!

I also got 760g of burnt orange 8 ply crepe. Not sure what I'm doing with it yet, but it was cheap and good yarn.

And now, off to do uni work.

Chart vs written patterns

I have noticed a few changes in my knitting of late, one of which was called into the spotlight last night.

In the previous post, I mentioned knitting the Shimmer shrug from knitty.com (of which I have started a sleeve and it feels wonderful in that tencel blend yarn!)

Until I started on the alpine lace, I could not work from a chart. Perhaps because I'd never tried. I'd also used combined knitting. Post-alpine lace, I knit english style as it makes following the pattern easier. I can now also read a chart. Rather well, I think.

Anyway, I went to start knitting the shrug, and so I read through the pattern and noticed there was no chart, only a written pattern for the lozenge lace. And I realised why written patterns make no sense to me anymore, and why they barely made sense when I first started lace and kept making mistakes.

We read this way --------->
<------------- and you knit that way (unless you're knittng left handed)

And that would be why I had to sit down last night and draw up a chart. I used a chart thingy made by Jacquie, in this to make my life easier

Day of Nothing

Today, I have done nothing. I have not spun, nor have I indulged in knitting. However, that does not mean I haven't done anything related to either activity, no!

Yesterday, I went shopping. I bought some yarn on sale. 4 balls of teal Zhivago. I had the idea to knit a shrug with it. I came home, searched knitty.com and came up with this. Perfect, the gauge matches my yarn and everything! With the exception of me being one ball down...

Today, I made a mad dash into the LYS and found they did indeed have some of the same colour, just not in the same dyelot. I decided to give it a go anyway. After taking this photo I can't tell the difference anyway. That may change after the knitting, but I'm not entirely sure it'll show enough that it will be noticable. I'll probably make a start on it tonight.



After coming home from the shops, I found a big brown paper parcel on the doorstep. It held this:
And this:

The top one is the natural grey tops I ordered from Wendy Dennis, and the bottom one is a bag of natural grey with silk. I'm looking forward to spinning these up! No project in mind for them as yet, but that may change.

And in case this post wasn't photo-heavy enough, here is a lovely shot of my cat, who has decided to comandeer the alpaca wrap I bought at this years easter show.

Bedsocks on request!

Someone requested a photo of the bedsocks and so, here they are! I knitted them on the spur of the moment, without regard to swatching or yardage checking... hence the orange ankle on the left foot. I think it's kinda cute, so I'm leaving it like that, even though I could put a new cuff on the right sock. Anyway, I knitted them a tad big and so they're really comfortable for wearing around the house. They knitted up in less than two days. It took me two days, but I did have uni on...



And while I'm here and posting photos, here are a few more, of more socks and lace in progress!

This is my new sock. Knitted in some kind of recycled yarn I picked up of ebay. No composition listed but it feels like it's mostly cotton. But it's coming along nicely. I'm not working on them exclusively, as I'm also working on this:

I'm on the 14th repeat of the double rose leaves, but I'm not yet halfway there. However, I have reached the point where I can knit without the chart! It only took 160 rows to do it...

Once again, sorry about the quality. If you like, I might get hold of a family members camera and fix it up.