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.

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!

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

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

It's been a slow week...

It's been a slow week in the way of knitting around here. The uni/house/ect work has been getting in the way. With any luck I'll be getting more done around here during the coming week.

However, I have managed to turn the heel of the tofutsies sock. I found I had an issue with picking up the wraps on the short row heel, but only on the knit side. Either way, it's all fixed, and there's a great video to show where you're going wrong at knittinghelp.com.

The heel has now been fully turned, and an inch or so worked on the leg. I managed to leave my camera at a friend's place so I don't have a shot of the actual current sock, and yes, these are different needles to the other photo. My gauge was too tight so I had to go up a needle size. I'm really not liking the bluntness of these bamboos though, so I've ordered a set of the knitpicks. These needles do hold a special place though, they were my first ever pair of sock needles, purchased last year at the Stitches and Craft show.


And this is one of the brilliant stitch markers my sister gave me. I think they're great!



Also, I'm nearly on Ravelry!

• You signed up on July 9, 2007
• You are #9247 on the list.
• 265 people are ahead of you in line.
• 16582 people are behind you in line.
• 34% of the list has been invited so far

Friday, the day of knitting and yarn!

Well, tonight marks the second last clue for the mystery stole. And I'm still over a week behind. It's not much further along than the photo shows in the last post. It's hard to believe that it'll all be over soon. Till next year anyway.

My push to get the alpine lace done kind of gave me lace overload so I've been a bit slack. However, I still have been busy, though it doesn't really look like it. I've been going to uni and keeping up with my work, and even trying to get ahead. It's easier to keep up if you're a week in front!

I had been a bit antsy about the tofutsies club. Everyone else appeared to have their yarn but me! I was right too, an clerical gremlin upset the shop's address book so she accidentally sent my yarn to the wrong address. However, the yarn appeared on my doorstep this morning! Yay for fast postage!


I have to say, if I'd seen this yarn in the store, I'm not so sure I would have bought it, but I'm glad I've got it. I'm really enjoying knitting it up. See?


Well, not quite yet anyway. Turkish cast ons on dpns are not my friend, but they do indeed look good and are good practice. That's what I tell myself anyway!

To make today even better (any day that include the arrival of a ball of yarn is a good one) we were visited by our godmother. She also brought yarn!


That's 6oog of laceweight! It's going to the stash for the moment though. I'm trying to make myself finish something else before I start more.

I've also been knitting on the boy's sock. I'm on the last pattern repeat of the leg before I try and figure out what on earth I'm supposed to be doing for the heel. The pattern isn't the easiest to follow, but it'll be fun!

A week late, but it's an update!

Yeah, I've been slack. After I finished the alpine lace shawl I took a bit of a breather. I worked every now and then on various projects and started a new tatting project.

I very nearly started a new knitted lace project today too, as my triinu shawl pattern arrived! I'm very excited, but a tad daunted by the pattern, so I've delayed it till I've finished the mystery stole.

Speaking of which, clue five was released about 10 minutes ago, along with the theme. Every mystery stole has a theme, which is released about 6-7 weeks after the start. It turns out this one is themed Swan Lake, and now we knit a wing apparently. I'm a tad behind anyway, so I'll get a chance to see what the wing looks like before I knit it. Otherwise we have the choice to knit it symetrically. I have a feeling I'll be doing the wing though, I feel like doing something new! I did a quick steam block the stole before taking the photos, it's getting a tad long for me to be bothered pinning it out just for a photo.


I'm really impressed with how it opens out. It feels wonderful!

New, which brings me to the next segway, I'm expecting a new ball of tofutsies! The new balls have apparently been sent out. Mine has yet to arrive but I'm looking forward to it, I need another pair of socks.

I've done a bit more work on the boy's cablenet socks. I'm under instructions from the recipient to work on them only when I'm tired of the other projects on the needles.



The tatting project is the celtic bookmark. I'm enjoying it and learning a fair bit, such as how to hide the ends as you go.


Here's to a more productive week ahead!

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.

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.

Magic Loop part II

I can now say I have used the magic loop. I have even succesfully made a sock with it. Before morning I will have made a pair of socks with it.

I used leftover yarn to make some bedsocks so the socks don't entirely match, but they're good enough, because they're besocks and no one is really going to see them.

I'm also really glad I used leftover yarn from that pinwheel jacket because it means I've knitted the socks on 5mm needles, so they've knitted up damn quick... And so I can follow what I did on the finished sock as I made it up as I went...

I'm really happy with it, particularly the cast off. I knit socks toe up (I also learnt the figure 8 cast on. Learning ahoy!) and so my cast offs tend to be rather tight, but I made up the cast off as I went, using a half-remembered picot cast off and ended up with a really loose cast off.

Yay!

Magic Loop?!

Yeah, I'm writing this post at uni so it might be a tad premature, but I'm taking advantage of the wireless internet here.

That bobbin full of singles I put in the last post? It turned out to be one of the worst examples of my spinning I've ever done. It was underspun in some places, overspun in others ect. However, all is not lost, ladies and gents! I do indeed have a use for it! I only hope that i have enough...

I have discovered that I have trouble getting to sleep at night without bedsocks as I'm too cold, so I'm going to knit that lovely coloured yarn up into a nice pair of bedsocks! I also suffer from second sock syndrome, which is the reason I have made a single pair of socks to date, so I'm exploring the magic loop method.

I've a large number of reviews that tend to basically say this technique blows, but it's looking rather easy to me so I'm giving it a shot when I get home with some spare yarn...

To come: my experience with the Magic Loop? Is it really Magic, or a simple Fraud?

Finished!

I have finished one of the projects on the UFO list! That being the pair of striped socks! They were knitted with Online supersocke self-striping yarn. A yarn I have decided never to use again. If I want stripes, I'll do it myself! At least then I wont have to deal with finding knots in the yarn without enough of that colour left to have a full stripe.

I'm a tad disapointed with the cast off though, it's still a little tight (these are toe-up). I tried Elizabeth Zimmermans sewn cast off, but it wasn't any more elastic than my standard cast off... I'd appreciate any suggestion!

Note: this is also the first pair of socks I have ever knitted. I feel proud! The next pair of socks in the pipeline will be made with that red handspun mentioned two posts ago. I found the same wool in a lovely orange colour. That'll make for some lovely striped socks!

Note II: sorry for the appalling photo. It's 1:10AM and I'm using the camera on my phone.