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!

Study

Isn't this the most pleasant of places to study on a mild winters day? We're at Shelley beach

I have a new hat!

I wanted a new hat. I wanted to try stranded colour. Here is the result! Better photos to come

Swallowtails Ahoy

This is the second one of these I've knitted this week. This one is in colourmart pure cashmere in a pale yellow. It was started last Thursday and finished last night as a gift for a friend, whose birthday is today. Hope she likes it!

Felting II

And done! And I'm really happy with it!

Felting I

The felted bag i cast on for yesterday. This is it pre- felting

Frost flower socks

Making good headway on these. Only started them this week and I should have the first one done by the end of the week

Hand dyed

My first ever hand dyed yarn, that also happens to be handspun. With luck, my sister will like it, it's to be knitted into socks for her.

Knitting and the great outdoors

I've started taking a bit of time out at uni for knitting. With a view like this, why not? It'd be nice if i could bring my wheel out here!

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.

Camee's shrug

The sleeve and some of the back of my red shrug

Ooops...

Ok, i think I've fallen off the wagon... I have a mystery shawl on the needles, a drop stitch scarf for Anne (but it's in a fantastic microfibre ribbon yarn), two pairs of socks, and another lace shawl. And what do I do? Find a beautiful shrug pattern in a magazine an order yarn for it, with the intent to wear it next month...

Is there a Knitters' Anonymous group?

Mystery Shawls

I may or may not have mentioned in the previous post that I was once again working on a mystery shawl. You may remember my first foray into the world of mystery knitting, that being the Swan Lake or MS3 by Melanie Gibbons. I got on rather well with it, but fell behind and lost my motivation. It's currently nearly finished, but living in my knitting bag until I can suck it up and get on with it. 

However, in the mean time, I've started another one Dem Fischer sin Fru. Yes, I know. I'm rather hopeless. Anyway, I finished the first clue on time, and have worked one row of the second. Here are a few photos for you to enjoy while I head off to knit like a maniac to keep up

.

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!

MIA

Ok, I'll admit it. I've been away for a bit. A bit you say? A BIT?! Well, if by bit you take me to mean nearly three months, then yes, a bit. You can all blame ravelry for this. But then, you can't really see it right now unless you're already in. Just now it's still in beta and thus not open to the general public. It has been sucking my time tremendously though. What with piles of forums, easy to browse patterns, being able to track what people are up to and so on, why wouldn't it suck my time? All in all though, it's been sucking my time away from my knitting budget.

So you'd like to know what I'm up to, now that you know I'm alive? Well, here we go.

These socks here?


They've been frogged. I really wasn't happy with them, and they didn't fit too well. Instead, I knitted these:


They were much more fun to knit, if a little frustrating at times. I certainly didn't get gauge and had to make the adjustments as I went along because maths is one of my big hurdles. They should fit their new owner though! The mini-cables are so very pretty though, and here's a detail shot of them:


So that's one of them so far. I'll leave it at that for the moment and update again soon with more of my exploits of the past three months! If you check the sidebar, you can see little progress bars showing what I'm actively working on at the moment. Enjoy!

Ben

This is the second such post on this blog. and yet it's far too soon

Today, my cousin died. He was 20 years of age and he had leukemia. He went through two rounds of treatments. After the second one they told him there was nothing more they could do. He could stay on meds and last another six months, or go off the meds and last six weeks.

He lasted 5 months.

I didn't see as much of him as I would have liked, though I saw him regularly when we were all little. At the family picnics at manly dam and clontarf, he used to rub sand in my hair, throw sand in my face, dunk me in the water, and generally treat me like a very young male treats a similarly aged female relative.

He grew up though, and he was a promising young man.

I'm sorry Ben. Really, really sorry.

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.

First sock done

About ten minutes ago, I finished sock 1 of the Summer Daze pair and I'm very happy with it. It's the first time I've got the bind-off loose enough.

Anyway, here are some photos of it.

As it's nearly midnight here, I'll cast on for the second one tomorrow morning. I've learnt casting on late at night can cause some serious side-effects!


Enjoy

Pfaff for me!

I have a new toy! Today mum and I made a trip out to Artarmon and, after a fair amount of driving about, picked up this:


This being my new pfaff sewing machine:


I'm really looking forward to using this. I've always wanted to sew more, but I find my mother's machine intimidating. Hers is also a pfaff, but it's a tad newer than mine, by about 20 years.

I'm making going out tomorrow and buying some fabric to make a bag I think. Something easy and basic to introduce myself to the new toy.

Spinning and knitting

So I've not been too great on the blogging front of late, so I thought I'd through in a few recent photos to try and kick start myself. And failing a scintillating post, at least there are photos to look at!

I've been working away on my summer daze sock. I'm trying really hard to finish these so I can can continue work on the mystery stole. I've found that if I'm getting nowhere on a project I can knit an interim one and get my mojo back. The interim for the alpine lace was the shimmer shrug. The result? I got both finished!

Also, last Tuesday I had a quick spinning lesson at uni with Katy and for a short while, Mel. During this, I remembered how someone on the spindlers list had mentioned spinning on a stick, so I gave it a shot using the working needle for the above sock. I ended up with this:



And upon home I had to demonstrate for the boy and my mother, and I did this one:

It's very slow, but rather fun! Not a way I'd want to use to produce any usable amount of yarn though.

Also, the cat decided to take up residence on my table/desk:

Right on top of all my knitting things! Including my recent stash acquisitions and my knit picks binder. I'm not entirely sure if you can call that comfortable in any sense of the word!

Also, for those who already there or on the waiting list, I'm on ravelry! I'm really enjoying it and getting to understand what all the fuss is about. It's brilliant! For those who've never heard of it, ravelry is like myspace/facebook/multiply ect but designed for knitters and better. Much better! My username is Camee if you'd like to look me up