skein

Er, weekend knitting

I quite like posting on Sunday nights, just seeing what progress I've made, if any, in my knitting.

And because I'm working on small things, which can be knitted up quickly.

So on Friday night I was pondering what to knit for Chris' mum.  I decided on a one skein koigu scarf.   Finished!

Pictured just off the needles.  It'll be blocked in a few weeks, just before it's wrapped.   
The colours look much more saturated in this picture than in real life, for a change.  The real colour is more washed out than this.  I wasn't sure about the beads, they're the Jaeger turquoise, quite sparkly beads.  But they match the paler colour in the koigu.

Then I finished off a stash scarf (for me) in Rowan Plaid.  I'd already knitted about 10 inches of this previous, but it's just a ribbed scarf, mindless knitting whilst I finished off my book.

It's really long, long enough to double comfortably.  Now to wait for the cold weather!  Gets rid of the big pesky balls of Plaid too, taking up precious space!

Today, I found the red superwash and white eskimo yarn to make the baby santa's hat.  I thought that this would be a very quick knit, but it's taken me all day to do!  And I still have the pompom to make.  As I want to make a larger sized one too for baby's brother, I'll make both pompoms at once. 

I really didn't enjoy making this, hated the superwash, hated the eyelash. As for sewing up the seam (you thought I'd use dpns! With eyelash?!) I've just whip stitched the eskimo and you can't see the join.  I'll have a break before embarking on the second one!

A couple more washcloths done now too.  Even worse than knitting a scarf!  (And no good for commuter knitting - if you have a seat and a long journey, you're very likely to have no knitting to do by the end of the journey, they're so quick)

So what do you say Polly?  Are you going to knit C'est la Vie too? Not too poncho-ish is it?  Jill's well on the way with hers, Amelia was looking at some Rowan on sale...

I have to say that I'm already disillusioned with this Christmas knitting.   I looked at my list, and I still have 3 pairs of socks to do, some birthday gifts and new home gifts to do.  But I've decided that enough is enough, just a pair of DK socks, which will be my commuter knitting. 

So,  what to knit now?  I have some felted tweed and KSH (Jelly!) here, and might start a bag  tonight, or bring home the DB Tweed in the office, and start another cardigan for me.  I love the ribbed swing jacket in the Tweed book, and do have enough yarn, but can I knit this for Christmas?  Can I stand doing a whole jacket in rib?  I had enough problems with the Colinette moss stitch short sleeved top!  There is a nice cardigan in her #7 book, but it has some sort of ruffled edge, not sure if it's me (but then again, it'll be a novelty knitting a ruffle). Anyone seen this in the flesh?

Another pair of socks

Sock lady strikes again.  Honestly, I don't know how people can knit socks all the time.  Commuting knitting, they're great (unless you drop a dp on the floor and have to scramble about retrieving it) but full time?  Nope. 

Here's the willie warmer from Wednesday evening's work.  The girls at work asked me to knit a really long piece of i-cord so that it could be strapped on like a jock strap, but there was no way I was going to spend more time on this joke pressie.

Knitted in dk self-patterning sock yarn.   

And my Christmas present socks

Knitted in the fabulous sock yarn that Polly brought back from Austria.  They're not as orange as this, the orange has more yellow tones.  But I'm not going out into the garden tomorrow to take a natural photo!

These will be for AC, Chris's brother's girlfriend.  She overreacted so well to her birthday socks this month that I just had to knit her another pair.

Next on needles this weekend is something for Chris's mum.  Either socks (what?) or a one skein koigu neck shawl.   I asked Chris to do his bit today and phone her to ask which she'd prefer, but he's not managed to do that yet, and I'm about to cast on, I'll make the decision now!   

I always dread the question 'what does Dawn want for Christmas?', happens every year, and I find it really difficult to give ideas.  If I don't though, I'll get something that I'd never wear or use.   I have to pretend that I don't know what's coming, but Chris always asks me anyway. He then pretends it's his idea.   

Ironically, there are loads of things that I want.  I'm a gadget queen, I love yarn, books, knitting gadgets, electronic gadgets, fiction, dvds, more gadgets, games  - but I'd have to be really specific if I wanted them to buy something like this!   I've opted this year for earrings. Always useful for work, and I'm sure they won't get anything too bad (sparkly). 

I usually get something quirky off Chris.  Along with a couple of knitting books from my Amazon wishlist of course.   Most years I do have to wait for these though, as he always orders them a few weeks beforehand, and usually they're delayed and holding up everyone's presents! (One shop wonder). 

Off to knit and sip some wine now!

No scarf knitting!

Titling these posts is a bit of a pain!
But that's exactly what I haven't been doing - knitting scarves.   I have, what, a dozen skeins of novelty yarn, and it's jsut sitting there!  I think I have a problem with novelty yarns, I have to knit really s l o w l y and it seems to take just as long to knit one bulky novelty scarve as a similar sized lace weight one!

Been knitting on the socks though.  I finished one last night, and started the second one.  I'm down to the heel flap, was hoping to whizz through it tonight, but I've got way laid tonight.

We've a new member of staff, who is living and working in Moscow.  Each week we send over any parcels / documents for our Moscow office.  This week, we've received a lot of parcels for the new boy, and when we've opened them, they've been full of birthday cards and pressies from his family. So it's soon to be his birthday.  He was on the phone today complaining about the temperature - it's minus 20 at the moment.  He's had to borrow some cash to go out and buy a fur hat today.  Some of our London staff put in a special request today - could I possibly knit one of those willie warmers as a fun gift? So that's what I've done, all knitted and finished tonight. Pictures at the weekend!   Really easy, I've just used some oddment sock yarn, dk weight, knitted a longish tube and a wider shorter tube.  Sewed them together, knitted a border with holes and threaded through a crocheted chain (couldn't be bothered to knit i-cord).

Oh, and I've knitted a couple of washcloths.  These are great gifts, but I do find them boring, even with a patterned stitch.   I have some cotton chenille at work, and this makes brilliant facecloths, so I might make another couple, but no pressure, it'll be commuter knitting!

I don't think I can take much more of this present knitting.  One more pair of socks have to be knitted in the next week, and the remainder can wait.  Chris will understand if his pressie is late, and the other main recipients will probably get theirs in the New Year.   My enthusiasm is waning!

Have I mentioned that I've found another new knitter?  Not new exactly, she can knit, but she's only recently picked up the needles after years and years of not knitting.  So far, she's knitted a scarf and a cowl.   A few weeks ago she went shopping for scarfs, our shops are full of knitted scarves at the moment, a lot of garter stitch.  She lives near High Street Ken, with lots of expensive shops as her locals, and was amazed at the cost of the scarves.  So she went out and bought some needles and chunky yarn, and off she went.   Get this - she says she's knitted fairisle and arans in the past, but she can't read a pattern, and that's where she needs help!  Apparantly, in her youth,  someone was at hand to read out the patterns to her as she knitted!  I'll get her along to Libertys in the next few months!   

more weekend knitting

I don't know, just one week of christmas knitting, and I'm bored!

Because I only have about 4 weeks to do these pressies, I feel Under Pressure (I'd be rubbish if I had to knit for order!) And my pea-brain can't get around the idea that socks (plain) and scarves are commuter knitting.  I feel uncomfortable knitting these things in the evening, wasting valuable knitting time doing mindless knitting.    The socks that I'm knitting will all be ribbed socks. I have a stack of sock patterns, but the people that I'm knitting for just want plain socks.  Most of the trendy scarves are just chunky yarn straight knitting, not my favourite type of thing to do.

I frogged my sock from wednesday, started it again with 2.25mm needles. It's opal, and I usually knit Opal on 2mms, but I'm aiming for speed here, and I'm more dextrous with the 2.25mm needles.  So this picture looks pretty similar to Wednesday's, but it's a new sock!

The so-called orange look here is really a yellow!

I finished the seaman's  scarf yesterday!  Here's a not-too-good photo modelled by Chris (conveniently hiding the ends; these will be finished when I've washed it, in a few weeks time)

Not too much detail shows in this picture, nature of the dark yarn and indoor photography.  This is Jaeger Shetland Aran, took about a ball and a half, and it's really nice to work with. The yarn is soft too, soft enough to wear next to the skin.  I've not used it before, but would certainly consider using it again.  This pattern is great too.  More seaman's scarves in the future, probably for me. After all, someone who's soon-to-be 44 looks a bit silly with a chunky 6 foot scarve wrapped around her neck.

I have a few balls of Rowan Plaid left over from Freya, and started another ribbed scarf last night.  It's about 2 feet long so far, but it's not going to work out.  I think a stocking stitch rolled scarf, a bit wider than usual, would suit this yarn better.  More soon.

Yesterday was cold in London.  We went shopping and my hands were freezing.  I rummaged around in the odd balls bags and found some Colinette Skye aran wool,  and quickly knit up a pair of  wrist warmers.  It's a travelling rib pattern (is that what you call it?) and the pattern is, I think, from Last Minute Knitted Gifts (I have a handy stash of photocopied patterns here, saves me bringing the books home from work, and I think it's from this book!)  Great pattern, the ribbed patterning forgoes the need to work short rows on the back of the mitten/glove.  There's a mistake in the pattern, should anyone want to knit it:  rows 5 and 6 of the thumb pattern are transposed, knitting these the way they're printed would mean that your rib starts travelling the other way!

Oh, I added a thumb too!  They looked a bit ridiculous with just a slit for the thumb.
My row tension was out, but I prefer these a bit longer, I've even added a bit on the length so that more of my fingers are covered.

These had an outing today.  We went up to the Southbank and had a couple of pints sitting outside.  My hands, though not my fingers, were suitably warm. 

Mmmmm, if the weather gets any colder, I've got some lilac-y wensleydale  4-ply that will make excellent gloves. 

Back to the sock knitting now.   The only thing that's getting me through this mundane knitting is my library books!  One down yesterday, another 5 to go over the next few weeks.

Wonder how Yvonne is getting on at Harrowgate?

Scarves, socks

Also known as Christmas Knitting has started.  Not my favourite knitting, but if I concentrate on this and don't look at the packs of yarn waiting to be knitted up into interesting jumpers, just for 4 weeks.....

On the needles

Socks in opal, colour 503.  Just 3x1 ribbed, 60sts on 2mm needles.  This is yarn that Polly donated,  and it's more saturated in real-light than this photo shows.  It's commuting knitting, but I've not been very lucky in getting a seat this week, so they're slow going. Thank god the recipient has small narrow feet!  In the ball the colour reminded me of ice-cream (why??) but I now think that these colours remind me of spring flowers.

Yes, definitely faded out in this photo (love the wysiwyg with typepad now!)

On monday evening Chris and I went to see Jill's husband do a bit of cajun jamming in The George pub in Southwark.  A crowd of tourists arrived just as they were finishing off, got their cameras out and started taking photographs.  I hope they realised this wasn't authentic British Folk music!   We enjoyed ourselves immensely, but had started drinking at 5.30pm, so by 10 I was rather the worse for wear, and couldn't do the fine motor movements needed for sock knitting on fine needles, soooo, out came the washcloth knitting, and I managed to finish this whilst getting more and more drunk.

Knitted in Rowan DK cotton.

(Phew, one pressie down!)

And when we arrived back home, I started on a simple lace ribbed scarf, big yarn, big needles, Katia Danubio Style, 76% wool, 24% nylon, but surprisingly soft although the colours are rather bright.  (I've only knitted this amount, it's drunken knitting)

The yarnovers are in there somewhere! 

Lastly, I've started a seaman's scarf in Jaeger shetland aran (originally destined to be the ruffle on my C'est la vie, until I worked out that I had enough Magpie left) 

This is black not light grey!  That's the sublte sheen of the shetland yarn combined with flash photography!

Can you guess the pattern?  It's really difficult to see.  It's a free pattern here .

I thought this would be easier than it is.
1) I need markers!  Otherwise I'm knitting away and missing the changing patterns.
2) It's all 1x1 rib, be it actual rib or moss stitch.
3) Black yarn!

Polly asks if I will wear my shawl.  I love knitting shawls, but hardly ever wear them, unless they're shawlettes or thicker yarn and can be worn for warmth.  I can't really see any occasion where I'll be wearing one.  I'll take it out and look at it now and then!   It won't stop me knitting shawls either!  I took it to Libertys last week and it was only just out of the bag, I turned around and that Yvonne had it draped over her shoulders!   I'll have to watch out!   

I have worn my C'est la Vie wrap though.  I really really like this.  I'm not too sure wraps are ideal for those of us over-endowed in the front area, though it's not going to stop me wearing it!  It's rather disconcerting though that Chris had a dream about me turning into a chicken - do I look like a chicken wearing this???

I managed to make a couple of pompoms and the twisted cord for Freya on Sunday night.  It looks fabulous... on the floor!   It's not so fabulous worn!  Those edges roooooolllllll!  I can cope with the stocking stitch collar, I just pretend it's a hood, but I cannot abide rolling edges.  Mind you, when our cold spell arrives I'll be wearing it for warmth, Plaid is very soft and warm (at least in my lap)

I'm rather pleased that this is knitted from my stash (apart from the chocolate kid classic) and I still have a  couple of balls left to knit, um, a scarf...

 

 

Weekend knitting plans?

Progress so far.

I'll start with the simplest project, a scarf knitted in Katia Reno Plus, a mixture of wool, mohair and acrylic.  Multi coloured, and really, the only thing to do was to knit a mistake ribbed scarf until the yarn ran out.  I was knitting this on the tube coming back from Libertys and a couple of teenage girls  were impressed with it, so that's got the ok from the young crowd.

This represents the colour fairly well.  I tried taking a photo with the white bath as background, but the scarf looked very dark and the colours weren't as obvious.

Next thing on the list was a one skein beaded scarf, just a couple of rows to do, a quick wash and block.  I've blocked this one so that the tails aren't as long, and the shape is more triangular than the last one.
 
If you click on the picture, you can just see the beads.

Next....
C'est la vie (now this is before the ends were sewn in, and the colour shown here has more red tones than the actual colour)

Thats a vodka bottle in the top right, before anyone asks!

And some more pictures of the blocked Peacock shawl.  Still without the ends sewn in, but that's all done and dusted now!

Horrible photo, but my batteries were running low and the blanket as background kept falling off the coat hanger.  Here's a close up:

Can you tell that I'm pleased with this?  Not so very pleased with the blocking, one tail is slightly longer than the other, but that's down to not having the time nor space to do it properly and measure up exactly. 

Now I'm putting Agnes and Donna on hold, and concentrating on a bit of Christmas knitting.  I've already started a washcloth to go with the hand made soaps.   I should be able to knock these out no problem.  I'll start some socks tonight also.   These will be pub knitting tomorrow night when I go to see Jill's husband doing his cajun jamming!  We really enjoyed it last time (although I don't think that they expected an audience!)

PS Still haven't done the braids and pompoms for Freya!  I seem to have lost the yarn - not difficult as there's 4 huge bags of oddballs (aka sock and scarf yarn) by the sofa!

Weekend Knitting Plans

I'm surrounded by odd balls of yarn waiting to be knitted up for quick (or not so quick) Christmas presents.  With so much distraction I'm forced to plan out my weekend knitting. Try to finish a few things that are nearly there, and start a few new things.

Koigu scarf - I'm at the beading stage (still) but need daylight to thread those small beads. 
Katia simple ribbed (boring) scarf . I'm on the third, and last, ball of yarn.  It's pretty quick mindless knitting though, easy enough to finish this weekend.

Freya, from Rowan 36, in Plaid, has been lying around for weeks now just waiting for a couple of twisted cord ties and pompoms.  It's all done otherwise, so I will make a special effort to finish this bugger off before the cold weather sets in!

C'est la vie wrap (ruffle stage still).  I miscalculated the increases in my last post.  There's 440 increased to 550 increased to 660.  I'm on the first half ruffle still, but only have a couple of rows to cast off.  I hope to finish this and do the other half this weekend.

Hopefully, if I work all day tomorrow (and the night is young) and Sunday morning, these will be finished and photographed on Sunday. I've been meaning to go outside and take pictures in natural daylight for weeks now, and knowing my luck it'll be raining and overcast!

I think that my shawl went down ok at Liberties, ends hanging out and all.  I 'd blocked it whilst Chris and Billy were out for the afternoon, so it was a rush job, in as small an area as possible (so no-one treads on pins) and hadn't realised that it's not quite symmetrical, not that you'd notice,  unless you fold it up.   And at liberties I treated myself to some  cotton dk for washcloths, to go with the beautiful hand made soap that Yvonne and I picked up last weekend.  Quick effective presents! 

Sooooo, if I manage to finish the above, I'll be thinking of starting a few things.  (Why oh why didn't I decide to spend the whole of November accessory knitting)

A few washcloths.
A pair of socks (started, Polly, not finished!).
A black aran cabled scarf.
A santa hat (which I see Jill has already started!)

Stay tuned!

C'est la Vie Wrap

Whee!! Finally, I'm on the border of C'est la Vie!  I visited JL on Monday, and bought a couple of balls of Jaeger Shetland Aran for the border, in black. I just couldn't think of any other colour which would go with the Magpie colour, and this Jaeger yarn seems comparable to Magpie. 

But I didn't need to buy this!  Jill, if you read this, you'll probably have enough yarn.  The pattern calls for 13 x 99yds for the rectangles, and 4 x 99yds for the border, total of 1700 yds.  A pack of Magpie is 1500 yds, and this has stuck in my brain since I read through the yarn requirements - must buy more yarn for the border.  In fact, I've only used 6 1/2 skeins (1000 yds) for the body, so the remaining 500 yds should be enough for the border. 

Never mind, by the time I'd realised, I had already picked up the stitches for the border.  It's knitted in two parts, and there's a lot of stitches! Gulp! 440 of the bleeders on one half! It's a 4x4 rib, with increases of 44 sts in row 4 and another 44 sts in row 7, meaning about 530 sts per half.  Just like knitting a regular shawl!  At least it's just ribbing.

I washed the smaller rectangle and blocked it to shape.  It was very stretchy, and I didn't so much stretch it out as push it into shape!  So for the second rectangle, I just very vaguely pinned it out and put a couple of wet towels over to dampen it.

As you stitch these together in pattern, there's no measurement involved in trying to join them, so if I was to make another one, I'd not bother shaping it first, just go straight into the border!

Peacock feather shawl will be making its debut (with ends still not sewn in) tomorrow at Libertys.  It's knitted in Joslyn's fiberfarm Shine colour Elderberry, and it's lovely and light and lacey.  I had a few issues with needles, started off with bamboo (as the yarn is a tad slippery) but as the stitch count increased, the join started to snag the stitches.  I moved onto denise needles, but the yarn didn't move around the flexible part very easily. Addi turbos were out, too shiny to see the stitches, and too slippery.  I ended up using Innox, just great for this project. 

Do I think the Peacock Feathers shawl is difficult?  Nope.  Is there such a thing as a difficult pattern?  (Apart from a couple of Debbie News - try following her swirl socks in Socks x3!).  I honestly believe that if a pattern is clearly written then it's knittable.  And fiddlesticks patterns are very good.  Clear instructions, clear charts if needed, and a full explanation of abbreviations. 

The Peacock shawl starts off at the top neck, and increases 4 stitches every right side row, at each edge, and two around the centre stitch.  Every wrong side row is purling, except for the two selvedge stitches.  She recommends using markers for each pattern repeat, but I didn't (which meant some backtracking!) as there is one row which increases the stitch count and calls for the markers to be moved one stitch, and I find that confusing. When I have a lace repeat, I count the stitches each repeat as I go, memorising a critical stitch and its number in the sequence, just in case I've missed a yarn over in a previous row!  The crochet cast off looked difficult, but when I sat down and looked through the close up photos provided, it was pretty straightforward.   The only stitches are yarn overs, left decrease, right decrease and centre decrease, all explained.   If this was your first go at lace, I'd recommend either taking the devil by his horns and leaping straight in, or trying one of Fiddlesticks lacey scarf patterns. This will familiarise you with her notations, be relatively quick to knit, and you'll get the lace high - when you block out the shrivelled bit of knitting (that looks far too small) and it's transformed into something beautiful! 

I'm on a Fiddlesticks kick right now, and once the C'est la Vie is finished, I'll be looking at starting either the Garden shawl, the lacey Poncho, or a scarf. 

Yarn purchases on Monday.

My hard drive at work wasn't due back until 4.30 pm, and I'd spent two working days without one, doing every scrap of work I could do without a computer. So Monday lunchtime I took off to John Lewis, to buy some more beads for the one skien koigu scarf.  I knew that I could take an extra long lunch hour (turned out to be 3 1/2 hours!).

No pictures, but it was a good day to go to JL.  They had DB number 7, Cornelia Hamilton's Noro book 2 and packs of Silk Garden.  Sooooo,  I've bought all of the above (that's a pack of Silk Garden, no idea which shade it is, as it's at work, to avoid temptation!). Very bright colours, anyway.  Also a couple of packs of DB tweed, in an olive with yellow specks colour.  Buttons, beads, ribbon and a couple of balls of Jaeger Shetland Aran for the border of C'est la Vie.  I couldn't think of any other colour except black which would go with this Magpie colour.

And the DB tweed called to me.  In a lovely olive colour with yellow flecks throughout. 

This is what happens when you've not been to a yarn shop for a while.

And I'm getting off this computer in a short while to look through 25 bags, just in case there's a quick Christmas bag in there to knit, and I might not have the right yarn!   Lots of luverly bags, but I have my work cut out to catch up with Jill!

Another great book which I haven't seen mentioned many places is Pursenalites  - 20 bag patterns, all felted, using cascade 220 (easily substituted over here) with a bit of novelty yarn added for interest.  Of course, we can all knit bags without a pattern, but it's fun looking!   I see at least half a dozen that I'll be knitting up in this book too!  (Available for preview at Libertys tomorrow!)

Shopping at Creations

Yesterday I met up with Yvonne and went over to Creations in Barnes for a bit of yarn shopping.   

We spent a couple of hours browsing through all of the new patterns and yarns.  She's got a limited range of Katia yarns in, so a few of these popped into my arms.  I think that I went a bit mad with the odd skeins.  It's not as if I didn't buy loads at Ally Pally, and there's only so many scarves that I want to knit for Christmas - I've a limited amount of time, a limited amount of recipients and a limited amount of patience for boring novelty scarves (which are the quickest anyway).

Soooo, here's the novelty yarn, all self-explanatory.

(This last one is Noro Silk Garden, for a Multidirectional Scarf.

And a work colleague is a Grandma again, so I'll be knitting a baby blanket for her new grandson.  And a Santa Claus outfit.

The yarn for these three projects:

(guess which is for the Santa Claus?)

 

Oh, let's not forget the books:

      

Freedom wool looks really nice and a bit unpsun. Apparantly it isn't selling well: not machine washable! 

On the knitting front I've had little success.   Because of the computer crashing at work I've been a bit traumatised, and have had to resort to lots of vodka and little sleep in the evenings, and knitting just hasn't appealed to me. I'd rather play computer cards than knit when I'm in a state! 

The C'est la Vie is coming along.  I'm on the decreasing for the smaller rectangle now.  But I've just looked at the edging, and it's got a lot of stitches (and is a ruffle!) so maybe not as far on as I would like.  I'm going to have only 3 balls of Magpie left for the ruffle, so it looks as if it will be in a contrast colour.

Donna's sleeves are crawling along, a few rows here and there.  Maybe about 4 inches (out of 11) on the first sleeve completed. It's 2x2 rib, so it's pretty boring!

The koigu scarf (purple, second one I've done) is knitted up to the beading. As I haven't got any beads, this is on hold. Creations didn't have any (which was the only thing on the shopping list!)

I've also started another pair of mexiko (blues) dk socks for Chris for Christmas, but only an inch done. I've 'remembered' that the other pressies have to be completed by mid December, to get to the recipients, so his present will have to wait, it's not important. He won't lose out though, someone at work goes to Asda, and persuaded a few of us to start putting money aside and getting an Asda customer card.  For each £144 you save, you get £150, and I'll have 2 cards ready for Christmas spending.  As I don't shop in Asda, I have no idea if they'll have anything that I want in the shop!  It's a bit of a gamble...

Chris took Billy out to the Imperial War Museum this afternoon, looking at WW1 stuff which is relevant to his syllabus, so I had four hours to block out the Peacock feathers shawl.

(That's a really naff old duvet cover underneath, as we didn't have anything larger to lay the shawl on)

And I pulled out 4 carrier bags of odd balls of wool and cotton yarns.  I save these up 'just in case' and use them for things like Charity baby hats and socks.  All of the odd balls of sock yarn are chucked in these bags, and I spent at least an hour trying to de-tangle the yarn.  At least a tidy yarn corner takes up less room!

The huge basket that I bought a few months ago is crammed full of yarn, and I think I'll tidy this out next. Maybe if I put all of the yarn that's for gift knitting in here, I'll get satisfaction out of seeing the pile go down!  No chance now though, I don't want to alarm Chris as to how much it holds!   It might also distract me from Novelty Scarf Knitting, as the luscious lace yarns I bought at Ally Pally, along with the Koigu and LL is hidden in there at the moment!

It looks as if Typepad has changed its settings somewhat, or that I've accidently clicked something, as this post is viewing differently (in edit mode) with the photos displayed as I'm typing; usually the code is shown only, and I go to preview to ensure it looks ok.  It's probably easier to compose, but I prefer the smaller type with code only, it's too distracting with photos!

Christmas is coming!

One thing I am not very good at is imaginative titles. This one will appear a lot in the next 7 weeks!

Jill's got me worked up about Christmas knitting (abbreviated to CK I think, I'll be typing it a lot!)

She seems well sorted, already has a head start.

I've not given much thought to it yet. Well, I thought that maybe I could knit a couple of shawls, several pairs of socks, a couple of fun scarves, some more lace.... but with only 7 weeks left, that's not going to happen. Apart from having 3 wips on the go for me at the moment, which I want to finish, there's quite a lot of other ones (for me of course) which I would like to start. I want to use the DB Maya that I bought at Ally Pally. The Winter IK has lots of tempting patterns. I need several cardigans for winter. Sooooo, CK is going to be significantly less this year than other years (and maybe I'll manage it).

Chris's parents are at the difficult-to-choose-gifts age. They have everything that they need, so hand knitted gifts go down well (as does Glenmorangie!). His father gets socks for birthday and christmas, so I may try a manly scarf this year. His mother has had socks, facecloths (and lovely soaps), scarves and shawls. His brother is Too Kewl for socks (one pair, not worn) or handknits. His girlfriend loves my socks but has also been the recipient of a bulky long scarf. My side of the family (those I still speak to!) don't appreciate knitted stuff at all. Knitted stuff was essential when I was growing up, it wasn't a luxury. We all wore knitted tops, the wool was re-used as much as possible and handknits were not special. They prefer games, books, toys (nephews and nieces) and lots of pressies.

I also have a close friend who appreciates knitwear, with two teenagers (great for knitting those quick knit tightly fitted trendy stuff for, still skinny).

So my CK this year is going to be (not set in stone)
4 pairs of socks (one dk)
1 man scarf
1 woman scarf (one skein koigu!)
2 teenage scarves (novelty)
1 20-something young woman scarf
2 face cloths
1 40-something not-so-young woman scarf

Birthday knitting (yes, two in December, one in January)
1 pair socks
2 teenage bags

Housewarming (for the close friend and two teenagers who have just moved into a new house!)
Washcloths (colour co-ordinated of course)
Cushions
Felted coasters (if I buy the book Jill's got!)

Now on top of this, I usually don't give the close friend (CF?) and her two girls individual pressies, unless it's a jumper or something, just a lucky bag of small stuff, they can fight it out. So I'll probably be looking at my oddballs for stuff like wristwarmer and other such cute stuff. I have lots of novelty yarns from Ally Pally to play with.

I've just remembered that a work colleague is about to be a nan again (due yesterday) and I always knit something for the grandbabies, so that's pretty urgent too).

I think I'll have to make another list for the sidebar!

Onto my knitting. I've started the second piece of the c'est la vie wrap. As I've not much choice for wips, I've been knitting this all day Sunday, and it's a bit boring sticking to one thing, so it's on hold for a few days.

Donna - I've finally got a move on and finished the front. The only thing worrying me about this is the short rows for the front. You're meant to measure the point to the lower part of your bust and start the short rows there. That's fine, but my lower part varies by about 3 inches, depending on which bra I've got on! Just got two sleeves to go now, and the only thing that I've changed is that I'll be doing them in 2x2 rib, rather than stocking stitch. It's a fairly plain jumper, and I think it needs this little bit of patterning.

Agnes still is languishing in the basket. I've got some inspiration from Polly - she's managed to finish a rowan 4ply soft in a man's large size, so I have no excuses, this is close fitting, high hip length and has short sleeves!

New knitting books
Courtesy of Amazon, two new books this week

Hot knits - don't like it. Lots of the designs look a bit naff, a bit eighties.
Pursenalities - I like this one! All felted bags, from tiny ones (4") to larger ones. Use of novelty yarn, buttons and beads. It wasn't on my wishlist, just picked up on it surfing amazon, ordered it to make up for free shipping. The patterns use cascade 220 (plus the odd pattern with noro, and the fuzzy/sparkly yarns) so easy to substitute too.

I've also ordered some kilo cones from J&S at the bargain price of £15 per cone! Aran weight, black and a bright blue. The black may be used for the edging on c'est la vie, depends if I run out of magpie.

Did I mention the new IK is wonderful? I've left it at work, but there's at least half a dozen patterns that are great. There's a couple of pairs of socks, some fairisle mittens, fairisle wristwarmers, hat, ties, a scarf... It's a Good Issue. In my opinion it's probably the best knitting magazine out at the moment.