Six month knitting recap

Well, it looks like I haven't made a post in about six months! I'd be surprised if anyone is still around to read my little corner of the internet. I could blame ravelry for my absence. But maybe I'll try and make a new resolution. One update a week, minimum, and keep track of the weeks crafting activities. Because this blog isn't really for my own enjoyment, it's also here so I can show other people (who aren't on ravelry) what I'm making and how I'm doing.

And so, a brief summary perhaps. Since August, I've knit a fair few things.
From a swallowtail shawl for myself. It was about time really. I'd had knitted two, one for my sister and one for a friend's birthday. This one is in a sock yarn, so it's machine washable (still needs to be blocked) and is also a bit bigger than the other two. Still very small for a shawl, more a scarf really.






Also made some socks on commission, these are in a cashmere blend yarn from theknittery.com and were made for Julie, Sean's mum's best friend. She requested a pink yarn and I picked this one, partly because some of the sale proceeds go towards breast cancer research, of which Julie is a survivor. They look rather strange, but that's because of Julie's tiny size 5 feet.




My cat went missing. He was gone 7 days. Previously, his longest absence was 3 days. Upon his return, he barely shifted from the pictured position for nearly a week. He still refuses to confess as to his whereabouts during that week.






I also knitted most of a jumper. That's it there, on the left. Unfortunately, it soon looked like the picture below. Mostly because I tired it on. It didn't fit. I'm now on the shoulders. That really isn't much, considering it's knitted top down.
















Also made some knitted earrings. They do have hooks on them now, just don't have a decent photo of that. These things are brilliant. Not too heavy to wear, and take about an hour from go to woah and so are perfect for last minute gifts. The pattern is free in the current knitty.com magazine.





I got this off two of my spindles. Not entirely sure why I had the same fibre on two spindles, but there we go. The skein is only about 80 metres and has been gifted to a friend who's about to take up some lace knitting. It's good for a practice swatch at the
very least.





My sister gave me this lovely new spindle for christmas. It's a square resin whorl from butterflygirl.etsy.com and it's part of a club. It means I get a new spindle and 100g of fibre for December, January and February. The fibre for December was a white blend of alpaca, silk and cashmere. It's like patting a cloud! I'll be keeping it unspun till I have a particular project in mind. I'm not wasting it! I'm also really looking forward to seeing what January's parcel looks like!


I finished this shrug on the 31st of December. I really wanted to wear it to the new years eve party. The body of it was cast off on and seaming started on the 29th, the edging cast on on the 30th, and the edging cast off on the 31st, with the seaming finished about 2 minutes before we had to leave.

I'm never ever doing deadline knitting again if I can possibly help it!






I also finished the cutest pair of booties in creation. Again, these were on commission, using the left over yarn from the Julie's bedsocks (above). There's weren't for Julie though, but for a friend at my SnB, who recently acquired a neice. I hope they fit!












And that's what I've been knitting in the last six months. Enjoy!

Ooooh! Technology!

Technology amazes me. The previous post was sent to blogger using my mobile phone. Way back when, (i.e. 6 months ago) I got a pamphlet in the mail saying "Look! Keep your mobile contract and get a new phone!" so I rocked up to the three store and this little sales kid convinced me to get a nice sony ericsson to replace my old nokia. I was all for continuing the contract and keeping the nokia, but I got the sony anyway. And it came with this mobile blogging function. I can take a photo and write a post and send it to the blog, all without having to use a computer! Woo!

Anyway, the photo down there is the shrug mentioned while falling off the wagon. Not much more work was done on it, on the grounds of being in a knitting overdose. I'm knitting a bit here and there, just not as much as I would have liked. The mystery shawl is still on the needles, but you knew that didn't you? You knew that if I'd finished everyone from here to Timbuktu would know! But I'm not that far off finishing, I just really need to sit down and do it! I've also picked up the rainbow barf socks, AKA Summer Daze, from the tofutsies club.

I'm currently trying really hard not to cast anything on till I've finished a few more things. Such as mum's socks! I've managed to finish those, finished them on Monday actually. I'll blog a photo of those when I next get my hands on them. Mum's been enjoying them, though she says they're a bit warm to wear just yet.

Oy...

I'm currently knitting like a fiend. I cast on the triinu shawl while I was away at Kandos last week. I haven't been treated well by it though. I cast on, discovered my needles were the wrong size, knit away thinking it made a good practice swatch, made mistakes, ignored them because it was a swatch, got home. Found out my needles were the right size, but I had to rip out what I'd done because of the errors. It's now back on the needles, but a new, improved version. I went through and changed all the decreases to make it neater. MUCH neater.

However, I'm also taking part in a mystery shawl knit-a-long: dem fischer sin fru (The fisherman's Wife) which needs the same size needles, of which I only have one set of tips. The plan is to use the tips on the triinu after finishing each clue for the mystery shawl... At least until the new set of tips arrive! May be a while though, since they're currently out of stock.

I assume you'll be wanting some more photos of the recent happenings.

I spun some yarn on the lovely ashford joy my grandmother has generously lent to me:

The yarn has graciously allowed me to knit it into a pair of booties, since it spun up at about 4ply/fingering weight. The booties will be given to a pregnant friend for the baby's going home outfit.

I also knitted a practice bunny for the baby:

Definitely not to be given, the thing isn't machine washable and I wouldn't do that to the poor mother!


However, on a brighter note, last year I took part in the Knitters Tea Swap. My swap partner, Amy Artisan, sent me this wonderful parcel!

Detail shot of the yarn:


Not pictured: the three blocks of chocolate also included in the parcel!

I've not yet knitted any of the yarn she sent, I'm trying to think of the perfect pattern for that sock yarn! The biscuits were tasty, and the tea delicious. I'm really looking forward to this years swap. I'm considering gathering things together now so when it starts I wont be behind the 8 ball again!

Oh dear...

Well, I've been extremely quiet of late. I'd apologise, but in truth I have been rather busy.

In the past few months I've done something extremely out of character: I got an assignment in on time without stressing, panicking or otherwise losing my head. I even had a draft done in time to have a tutor look over it before handing it in!

I've been knitting, but also spending far too much time in ravelry than I really ought to, particularly when I have uni work to do. It's strange that a site dedicated to knitting and crocheting can actually sap the time you used to use for those activities! I suppose I've just been having problems keeping this going, when ravelry effective does what this blog was designed to do. I'm going to keep it though. Ravelry does not include a blog.

As far as knitting goes, besides adding things to my ravelry queue, I've been knitting socks. I currently have four socks on the needles and I've also knitted a mug cozy.



Interestingly, it does actually help keep my tea warm. I'm planning on knitting another one today or tomorrow. Can't hurt to have more than one!

I'm also taking part in a sock swap and for that I'm knitting this sock.


I really have to get to work on it, but I'm suffering from a slight case of anxiety with it. I've had to mod the pattern a bit for many more stitches and I'm not entirely sure it'll work. I suppose I just have to have faith


I'm also knitting along on mum's socks. There isn't a deadline on them really, seeing as they're made from a cashmere blend and she wont be able to wear them till next winter. I'm really enjoying that pattern though!



The other two socks I've posted about before. They're the cablenet and the summer daze socks. I've started the second summer daze sock, and I did a few rows of the cablenet last week. That's really all I have to say about those two!

The mystery stole is still on hiatus, though a row was worked on it yesterday.

Clue 2

And I've caught up! I have finished clue 2 just in time for tomorrow. And a good thing too, it means I can spend tomorrow apologising to the magenta lace for neglecting it. I have a couple of other projects I want to start, but I have to get something off the needles first!



Not the best photo, you can't see the beads. I might do a detail shot after I finish the next clue.

Mystery stole catch up

I have caught up! I hope, anyway. This is the completed first clue, the clue for the week I was away without internet access or beads.



I finished about 1:30 this morning, but now I can relax and take this weeks clue at a nice steady pace.

Typically, I had problems putting my lifeline in this morning, ripped it out and decided I'd be fine without it, I'd made it this far without a mistake, right?

Wrong, first error in the first row of the new chart. Turned out to be nothing more sinister than a missed yarn over that was easily fixed. Bring on the lifelines!

The Week in Review

Well, we have returned from my sojourn in Kandos and I had a lovely time. We spent an awful lot of time just doing as we pleased, watching dvds, walking around, visiting the surrounding country towns and so on. We also took a fair few photos of the green. It's not been that green out in the central west for almost a decade, so photos were taken just in case the drought continued, and so:

I knitted, I watched Sean knit: (yes, he knitted that himself)


I started learning to walk on stilts!


Speaking of knitting, I finished the tofutsies!

I'm very pleased about it really, it means I wont still be working on them when the next ball arrives. It also frees me up for some of the other projects I really should finish, such as the magenta lace.

I have also joined the mystery stole knit-a-long. Basically, a wonderful woman known as Melanie writes a pattern for a lace stole, lace that's not worked in repeats or such like much other lace. She then releases the pattern in parts every Friday. You need a bit of faith as you have no idea how it'll turn out when you start, but going by her previous works, I'm thinking it'll be just gorgeous. I swatched for this while I was away, and managed to find internet access in Mudgee so I could obtain the first clue. However, while I had the yarn and needles with me, I couldn't start it. I had to wait till I got home to get the beads, which didn't show up till Thursday anyway.

I'm working with undyed laceweight merino from live2knit.com and gold-lined clear seed beads.
Last night I finished Chart A and I'm now working on the second half of Clue 1, so hopefully I'll be able to catch up by the end of the week. Here's a shot of where I left it last night:

The magenta silk still look similar to the last photo I put up, just a bit longer. If I wasn't working on anything else, it'd be finished next week, but hey. All in good time!

Random update

Not much is going on here at the moment. I had my final exam today so you should be seeing much more in the way of knitting coming from me over the next four weeks. Yay for knitting time! Also, from Friday I'll be away for a week. Heading out to Kandos for a holiday free from distractions. There will be much in the way of sleeping in, cooking, photo taking, stilt walking, juggling and unicycling alongside the knitting and spinning.

It was mentioned to me a while back that I had tatting in my intro, but no sign of it on the page. Well, here it is, proof I can tat:

It's a very basic edging. To be honest, for me tatting is like crochet: something I can do passably well, I'm just better at knitting and I enjoy it more.

And that blue sock? I'm now just beyond the cuff. Mainly because I frogged it three times. I made an error for the first, and the second two were turning out waaaaaaaaay too big. All fixed now and progress is being made

Socks

Yes, I'm knitting socks. Yes, you say. We know. No, I say, you don't. Because this is the first you're hearing of this particular pair.

The tofutsies haven't been finished yet, but they're currently living in my bag to be taken places when I'm out and about. This new pair will likely never have the privilege of living in my bag. They are attached to a 200g ball of yarn courtesy of the Bendigo Wool Mills.

I wasn't really expecting them to be that large, so I ordered two to make absolutely sure I wouldn't run out of yarn. Yes, it makes sense that a 200g ball is 4 times the size of a 50g ball, but it didn't sink in till the balls arrived.


I think I have plenty to make at least two pairs of socks... Even if one is a pair of man-socks. The man-socks are actually Cable Net socks, which are actually remarkably similar to the pair I started with this yarn, then ripped back because the cables tightened it up too much.

The pattern is rather fun, complex without being too demanding, and no cable needle required!

And I got this far before heading to bed:

............

Yes, I'm rather enjoying the camera, thank you for noticing!


edit: I've fixed the comments. You can now leave a comment if you're not a member of blogger.

What's that? Alive you say?

Well, I live, as does everyone else in this house. However, there is some truth to the saying, I knit, therefore, I am. And I have been. I have also picked up a digital camera that I'm very pleased with, a Lumix (aka Panasonic) TZ1. It has all sorts of nifty features. Please be tolerant of the photos while I learn how to use the thing to take good knitting photos. I did only pick it up yesterday.

Speaking of photos, here are a couple.



Here are the socks I've mentioned in previous posts. I'm working on finishing the foot of the second one in between cramming for my PSY237 final next week. I can't fail a sock, I can fail an exam.

I've been really enjoying this pattern though. It's an easy pattern to memorise, the yarn is lovely and soft and forgiving (I may or may not have frogged one or more repeats when I just started). And the colour! It's currently reminding me of a tiger that fell into vat of pink dye. I'm very much looking forward to finishing these socks, wearing them and starting on others. I've ordered some yarn to knit some socks for Sean, along with some undyed yarn that I'm probably going to dye when I visit Joy to pick up some laceweight she ordered for me.

As for the lace,

Here it is at the halfway point. It's on semi-hold till I've finished the tofutsies. I'm working a row here and there, but again, study is coming first.

I'll also post a photo of my gloves once I have them and my camera in the same place at the same time.

Home and Away

Well, life has been exciting for the past week, and I'm not talking about knitting for once. While I know this is my knitting blog, I feel like blogging about my life in general.

I've not been knitting much, even if I have finished a sock (well, almost, seeing as I have never done Kitchener before. Anyone got some advice?). I have done no more work on the pinwheel or the lace since my last post.

Last Friday, my sister got dashed off to Royal North Shore with stroke like symptoms. It turns out she's OK for now, but if she has another event like this, there will be issues. She just needs to keep her fluids up and be careful from here on in.

The weekend was wonderful, with camping and bush walking. I also discovered it is rather difficult to work a lace sock by the light of a campfire.

However, as for Monday. A day I had set aside for knitting and studying... I was the one dashed off to Hornsby hosp. Severe pains in lower left abdomen. Still no explanation. The pain still hasn't gone away, though it is no where near as severe. Hopefully I'll find out what's going on and how to fix it later. I did, however, manage to turn the heel of my sock while I was there. Come rain, hail or nasty tummy pain, I will knit!

As for lack of posts. I've also been without Internet for the past week. We're trying to upgrade, but Telstra, iinet and TPG are all taking their sweet time in sorting it out. With luck, I'll have internet back by tomorrow at the latest. Just now, I'm using the uni computers.


Oooh, the sock! The sock is from the South West Trading Company's tofutsies sock club. They have this nifty system where they release club only colours, to a limited club population, and you sign up to the club through a middleman (in my case, ecoyarns.com.au) and in return they send you a ball of yarn and a pattern every two months for the coming year.

I think it's brilliant! I love my socks! Well, sock for the moment. I'll be able to finished grafting the toe when I get home and cast on for the second one. I'm surprised they went so quickly. The first pair I knitted on these needles took forever! The colour of these ones is pink and charcoal grey. When knitted up, they remind me of a tiger that fell into a vat of pink dye.

Apologies for the rather rambly post. I'm tired and there's been alot going on.

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.

UFOs revisited

Remember way back in one of my first posts my mentioning of the Pinwheel Jacket? It had been put on hiatus for a fair while, since about the end of january really. I found it was too hot to knit with a large lump of wool sitting on my lap, summer is not the season for a pure wool knee rug!

Anyway, I've picked it back up again. I have a number of assessments at uni due and an exam that frankly scares the living daylights out of me (I don't normally do well with exams). Mindless knitting that occupies the hands and not the mind is exactly what I need at the moment, and so I've recommenced work on it. To be honest, there isn't that much to do. I have 1/3 of a sleeve done and only 25 rows to go on the body, and maybe the i-cord edging. I'm not sure if I'm going to do that yet.

Besides, I bought a few books, and I'd like to have a warm jumper finished before I knit anything out of those. I'll review the books as soon as they arrive. I did buy them from Amazon.com so it might take a while. Has anyone else noticed that knitting books in Australia are absurdly expensive? It is cheaper to buy them from America and pay the shipping!