skein

Back to work

Tomorrow!  First time since 24th December, and it's going to be difficult.  I'm naturally a night person, and over the weeks my bed time has been later and later.  Now it's 5am.  In a vain effort to acclimatise to daytime again, I set my alarm for 10 this morning, hoping that tonight at midnight I will want to go to bed.   Work also means an end to long hours of knitting, so my FOs will be severely curtailed, as I'm not a fast knitter, I have just incorporated knitting into a lot of house things, like computer reading, tv and books.

I've made a little progress on my diamond patch socks, but only one layer (so fiddley) and not worth photographing.  Likewise my cashmere scarf, another couple of repeats - I'll wait until everything has moved on significantly (and the pic looks different) before posting a photo.

I have my first FO for 2005!  The Touch boucle garter shawl.   One day to knit (2 skeins).   Yesterday I crept outside to the garden, the weather was cloudy, with occasional (brief) sunny spells.  I've managed to take a few photos, but for some strange reason these are really washed out. 

My Donna looks crap sitting there on the grass - it's all about short row shaping and doesn't look good two dimensional.   It's also navy blue - this shows how washed out the colours are!

Not washed or blocked and I wore it yesterday.  It's a nice comfy stretchy jumper.

Also, the Touch shawl - again, it was on my shoulders yesterday keeping me warm in cold London.

And another view with more representative colours:

Notice the transition in colour when I changed skeins?  Not too bad in this pattern, it looks intentional rather than accidental.

And Wavy! The colours aren't as true, but at least you can see the waves in Silk Garden!

I wore it out today, and no-one seemed to notice it!  (Lots of scarves out there, all looked new and christmas-present-y)

We sat up late last night watching the third series of 24 (only two episodes) and needed some stocking stitch to knit on frantically, so I've started a top down jumper, plain raglan, in the DB Maya sitting in my stash (NYR must use the nice stuff)

I've just got to the division for the body.  Will knit on this a bit, then decide on a collar.  I always find with top downs that it's a great idea to knit the collar before finishing arm and body lengths, as this will pull up on the length.  I've chosen a square neckline, not too sure yet what to do with the collar.  I'm thinking of some sort of fold up ribbed collar, maybe with flared ribbing. Lots of time to decide, because once I'm through with the raglan part it gets really boring, and too large to use as commuter knitting.  I'm also prone to knitting top downs a few inches shorter than I want,  my brain reverts to masculine methods of measurement!

It's a gorgeous shade of blues, pinks, browns.  I picked this up at Ally Pally last year, a whole packet of the stuff.  I'm on skein two, and I hope the packet is a 10 skein packet, not a 5 skein packet, or I'll be knitting something waist length!

Beautiful to knit with too.

I've sent off my email details for the sockapalooz over at the blue blog.   Too late for anyone else to join now though!   I love surprises, so I haven't given any criteria at all - let my sock partner decide! 

Happy New Year!

Love the imaginative title today! 

We had a quiet New Year's Eve,  drank champagne and vodka, went to be at 5.45!

Yes, I finished Donna and Wavy yesterday, with nearly 2 hours to spare!   So I spent the rest of 2004 winding skeins, pattern books out, needles all over the place, trying to thing of what to knit. 

Because of this:

there are no photos of Donna or Wavy.  This photo was taken at 1pm!  That's anti-pigeon/flying rat netting on the photo, taken from the balcony of the flat.  It looks pretty ominous, as if we're caged or something, but it's not normally as apparant, obviously the camera needed to focus on anything but the overcast weather! Lovely view of Putney, isn't it?

New Year's resolutions
(Just the knitting ones, Chris coudn't believe that I should want to make knitting resolutions)
1) There's no need to rush to the shops every time a new yarn comes out.  This will still be in stock for a few years.

2) There's no need to buy everything in the sales *just in case* I might someday find a use for it. Concentrate on the discontinued yarns that I like. (Wish I'd bought more Magpie)

3)Don't save the nice (aka expensive/hard to find) yarns for a rainy day.  Knit with them. Use them up.  Enjoy them. ** see below

4)If I'm fed up with a WIP, or it's not looking good, FROGGIT!  Or if I can't do that, and there's a chance it's a passing phase, put it away for a few months.  ** see below

5)I have enough stash and don't need to keep those ends of yarn.  I am not likely ever to knit a modular jumper using odd yards of yarn. 

6)Try to knit socks other than my generic 3x1 ribbed socks (although these are my favourite things to wear and I can read whilst I'm knitting them) ** see below

7) More lace please this year.  I'm not knitting as many shawls as I would like to. ** see below

8) More fairisle this year also.  In 2004 I knitted not one fairisle or colourwork item.  In this respect, I would like to try my hand at mittens.  Small and quick.

9) If I want to knit Christmas pressies, then I should start them earlier, or make them smaller with thicker yarn.   

Polly asked me what I've started today, so here goes!

** Resolution 6 has already been implemented.  I started a Diamond Patch sock this afternoon (and it's bloody slow going, lots of ends).  This will probably take me months to do, and I'll probably have to have a SIP #2 on the needles (generic) to compensate, or there will be very few socks knitted this year.

Joslyn's fiber farm sock yarn, 2.25mm needles, lots of safety pins.

Resolution #4 has also been implemented. 
This
 
is frogged.  Easy pattern, but I got carried away and forgot to increase at the end of the section. Not enough stamina to tink KSH, I pulled the needles out in a huff yesterday.

Resolution #7 is implemented also.
I started a beautiful lace scarf this morning, from some cashmere laceweight that Yvonne very kindly gave me for Christmas (and she's still waiting for her pressie!)

Isn't it gorgeous?

Finally, resolution #3 - use those nice yarns!  This is some Touch Handpainted wool boucle.  Gorgeous colours, purple, orange, russet, but, black.   Not much to do with this though, as I only have two skeins, other than a snuggly garter stitch shawl.

That's all I've started, so far.   Well, I did a tension square with some Felted Tweed last night, but I'm a bit vague about what I want.  The DB Maya is still a temptation, but I can't face winding another skein.  If I do get this out, it will most likely be a stocking stitch jumper, top down, basic and plain.  I need a couple of reading/surfing WIPs!

Off to put the knitting resolutions on my sidebar, to keep me on track.