skein

Unpacking continues

We've filled up all available cupboards and closets, and yet we still have a big pile of boxes in the living room and under the large coffee table, with nowhere to store them! I had a little bit of a meltdown last night, when I realised we are bursting at the seams.  I'm not a tidy person, but, suddenly, every surface is full of rubbish.  I can't find things.  I had to root round for my battery charger for the camera last night. To get to drawers I have to move the various bits of excess furniture out of the way.  My stash is all over the place.  I've finished the first sock of the current pair, but I can't find the second ball to knit the second sock!

I've had a busy week of installing all the software for the home hub, and vision box (bt) which was actually very easy to do, just not so when you're falling over wires and scart leads and ethernet cables, in a small space full of boxes, tired from a full day's work. I've never had so many things to plug in!  We have two phones now, one is a broadband phone, but yet another plug to find a home.

All the knitting this week has been on a denim blanket from Debbie Abrahams first Blankets and Throws book. I'm a little addicted to this type of book at the moment, I suppose because you can pick them up at any time, and the projects are all small squares, easy enough to knit one in an evening. Dawn's equivalent of wash cloths!  I've also not dismissed crocheting a koigu blanket, especially after seeing Mary's crocheted squares.

The Bee Fields shawl and the Autumn leaves are on hold until my concentration comes back.

I'm hoping that's soon!

This is the view from my front door; the leaves turn red and fall off in a matter of weeks.  The first red leaf appeared about 9 days ago.

I so love Autumn.

I'm going to spend Sunday trying to make a dent in stash re-organisation.  I need a camera and daylight so that I can photograph and log it all. It's all been moved around, so my tags on flickr and ravelry need changing. 

Sockaloozer socks are here!

Yes!  My pal, Amy Jo, has had a few problems with my socks, this is the second pair which she's knitted for me, as one of the socks from the first pair went walkies (Roza's socks, which by coincidence were my last finished pair!). Oh, and she's managed a huge move as well!

These socks are Thuja socks, another great knitty pattern, using Shepherd Worsted in Blackberry, one of my favourite LL shades.

That isn't such a great photo of the colour ... see below!
Also included were a couple of bars of yummy chocolate which has already been opened (I'm at work, so it's being shared out) and some Artyarns merino - fingering weight, which I've never seen before. I'm sure it is fingering weight, it's got the yardage and it looks like 4ply. A gorgeous shade!

Here's some dodgy on-the-foot shots. It is so difficult to get a good shot!  I tried to get a work colleague to take some photos, but my camera shut down on her!
 

The colour is much lighter in these shots, and I've sneaked outside for the pub-table shot (much to the drinkers' bemusement)

Thank you so much Amy Jo!

Moving

We moved. From SW to SE london, aka the stashflat. 
The stashflat is chock a block with boxes. 
I can see by the state of the packing of the last two rooms, kitchen and bathroom, that Chris just emptied everything out into bags and didn't sort it out. Several nearly empty bottles of cleaning supplies, loads of out of date storeroom cupboard supplies. I've already thrown out two rubbish bags worth of stuff!

We have bags in the bathroom (most bags are those sturdy Sainsbury's reusable bags which can hold a lot of stuff), bags in the kitchen, the living room has computer boxes piled up next to the tv,   

and a sofa bed leaning against my knitting bookcase. The bedroom is unaccessible on one side of the bed, and my side isn't much better.

I have the vacuum cleaner, ironing board and stuff that normally sits in a storage cupboard by my bed (because the cupboard's full of boxes) and the Putney stash and clothes there also. This morning I couldn't get into the wardrobe or chest of drawers to get my clothes, so I found myself cutting open a box to try to find something to wear - in the dark so as not to waken Chris! 

We have broadband, we have a home hub, but we have nowhere to store the computer boxes until the cupboard is cleared.

It's chicken and the egg situation.

To build the sofa bed we need to find room in the bedroom for the sofa.
To do this we need to clear some big boxes from an alcove in the bedroom - i.e. put them under the bed.
Which needs to be built.
Which can't be built until the old one is disposed of. 
Once we have done these things we can reassess what's still not stored, and rearrange the storage cupboard for the excess.

I am not panicking about my stash. But I do need to get it all out from under the (old) bed!
It's nice to see the stash that was still at Putney - I tried to explain to Chris about the joys of rediscovering old stash, but he didn't understand, at all!

I'm afraid that my September goals are way out of the window now.  I just cannot concentrate on the Bee Fields shawl, so it's (temporarily) put away.

The socks are still on sock #1, but it's plain stocking stitch. I'm going to do an afterthought heel as I think I may run out of yarn.

I've started a few things (stress management, prior to moving)

A simple Forest Canopy shawl  in Yarn Yard's Merino-tencel yarn. If you haven't tried this pattern it's available for download and is so easy - you only have to memorise 3 rows, and as the lace is a repeating pattern it's really easy to spot a mistake.

A denim blanket from Debbie Abraham's Blankets 1 book. This isn't going to be finished anytime soon, but it's a good project to pick up and knit occasionally.  Have you seen that she'll be hosting a mystery blanket kal that lasts for a year?  I'll have to keep checking back for that one.

It's not too clear here - I had to take the photo on the window ledge as there wasn't a space!

Think of me this weekend.  We have already made a start on reducing the number of wine bottles. The vodka is next on the list!

Bee Fields Shawl

I have been knitting this, though it's going slowly.  One shot looks much like another within each pattern, but I'm happy to report that the bee fields section is complete, and I'm not on the bee swarm section, a tad more difficult as there's no resting row; the lace is worked on both sides. 

Blogging may be sporadic for a week or two as we are relocating to the stash flat next week! This flat went on the market less than 50 days ago, and completion is next week. Yikes.  Thankfully, apart from a couple of knitting bags and some packs of yarn stored under the sofa (well, nearer 10 packs!) the rest of my stash is already at the stashflat. We packed a lot of stuff up when we decorated a few months ago so it's just several cupboards worth of clothes and the computer stuff.  I'm going to be out of the way the night before the move, it's much easier, in such a small flat, if there's only one person doing the packing!

That means that the stashflat is going to be very crowded with stuff for a few weeks as we have to slowly repack things already there and move/rebuild some of the furniture.  I'm not good at moves, and want everything back to normal asap.

The last thing I should be doing is buying more stash!  But Stash has new koigu stock, and I couldn't resist this lot.

Not all koigu though; there's some Malabrigo lace weight yarn in there (Violetas and Paris Night) and some Smooshy sock yarn! 

Think good karmic moving thoughts please!  I intend to relax later on this afternoon with LOTR The Return of the King, working on the ribbing (still!) on the Autumn Leaves cardigan. I hope by tonight to have reached the leaves pattern.

Roza's socks and some baby bootees

A quick, easy knit.  If you like ribbed socks, these are a great alternative.

Roza's socks, from Interweave Knits, Spring 2007
Yarn:  Fleece Artist Sea Wool.  I'm not sure of the colour, the label has disappeared!

Started: end of August
Finished: September

Another of my seven September goals accomplished.

And another one:

A selection of baby bootees for Brigid's appeal. I frogged the pink in-progress socks and have donated the yarn to someone else.

A quick check on my September goals shows that I have completed three and have four more to go:

Finish the Bee Fields shawl

More socks

Start something new (a garment) *** oops see below

One more thing, probably socks (but maybe a little neck scarf)

***How could I forget?
I've started the Autumn cardigan!

This was the progress on Sunday night (just before LOTR)

This is the progress today (which was largely accomplished whilst watching LOTR on Sunday night)

So far so good.  I chose the burgundy as i-cord edging, which looks a bit odd at the moment, but I'm sure will balance out once I get to the next burgundy repeat in the skein.

I currently have NO socks on the needles, and rather than start something new on the commute in this morning, I brought this as commuting knitting. Oddly, it's larger and quite colourful, but I still get more stares when I get the sock knitting out.

 

Current WIPS

Our home computer monitor has given up the ghost and we're  not sure when the new monitor will arrive, so in the event of no computer this weekend, I'm posting from work. 

The Forest Path Stole is blocked!  I have yet to get some outdoor photos, but couldn't resist trying to take a few last night. I couldn't manage a whole stole, it's too long for the bed!

I used Colourmart's 2/28 laceweight cashmere, and after a good hot soak to wash away the oil the cashmere feels just gorgeous.   It's enormous too.  The one thing which I regret is casting on too loosely.  I'm used to having to cast on very, very loosely so that I can block severely, but this stole was about the blocked width unblocked, so I only added an inch to the width.  I may, now that the oil is out and the shawl has had a good bath, reblock this with wires, and then spray to dampen.  There's a few places where I pinned out the stole (a single side stitch) rather than the fishing line, and although you really wouldn't notice it,  I spotted it! 
Phew!  Six months in the making.  I have some of Richard's heavy lace weight yarn (3/28) in stash, and now that I know how this transforms with a good washing and blocking, I'm keen to knit something else in this cashmere.

WIPS.
The sock is still on the needles. No time on the commute (because we've had horrendous delays with the underground strike this week) so it's languishing. 

The Bee Fields is also not going very quickly.  That's because I spent an evening fussing with the Forest Path Stole, and another evening fussing with my knitting books, checking to see if I could find a pattern for my Kauni yarn (I decided to go with the Autumn cardigan after all), and last night I decided to swap some stash around - lethal in my household as I have so much. I've put away some of the cotton yarn (which I thought I'd knit this summer!) and swapped it with some woollen yarn. Only a few packs were shuffled from here to there, but of course one always stops to look at other stash too, checking where it is, discovering forgotten gems. 
This is the progress so far

I've another 25 (ever increasing) rows until the next pattern, I'm hoping to get going on this next week.
The Kauni Autumn Cardigan
I've swatched.

Then spent an entire evening fussing over which colour i-cord to edge the cardigan with.  The pattern design is edged in pale yellow, and Chris immediately went for this option. However, my yellow looks a bit dirty and is more like a mustard yellow.  The other colours in the background yarn are bottle green (no way, it's my school colours!) and lime green, which might look a little horrible as an edging, though I love this colour. So I'm going with the foreground colours.  The choice is a mauve colour (too pale) a pink colour (too bright?) or the colour shown, burgundy.  I think I'm going with the burgundy, a darker and safer colour. Or maybe tonight it might be pink! 
Finally I leave you with some ... crochet!  I have a stack of koigu, just love that babette blanket knocking around blogland, so I played with some of the colours.  This might morph, eventually, into a blanket. 

I'm not too keen on all of those ends to darn in though!

This and that

I've spent the last two nights over at the stashflat, as we've had a tube strike and it's much easier for me to commute from there into work.  I've not done much knitting though!

Monday evening I decided to wash the Forest Path Stole. 
Very grubby water (that's six months of knitting for you)

Very shrivelled up piece of wet cashmere

Blocking

It's enormous!  The blocked measurements should be 85"x30", but my shawl was already 30" before blocking, so I've added an inch to stretch out the entrelac lace panels. 
It was still damp last night, so I'm leaving it for a few more days. God knows when I'll find time to take photos, the weather's so gloomy at the moment, and it's too dark when I get home (not that late, but dusk) for decent photos.

So that was Monday night.  I also wound up some Kauni

Tuesday evening I browsed through knitting books for a pattern.  Lots of lovely candidates, but I've finally gone for the pattern for which I bought the yarn, Autumn Cardigan. (Click on Strikning, then on the pattern photo and there's a flag for english.)
The cone on the right is going into stash and isn't destined for this pattern. I think I'll use it for a shawl of some sort. I've accidentally brightened the photo and it's not quite as bright as shown, a bit more subtle.  I'll be casting on tonight!

August and September knitting goals

Not quite there, but I did a good job on the August knitting. I've relaxed a little this week (hence no blogging) and have been pottering around reading knitting books and knitting on small socks.

How did I do?
1) Finish the Forest Path Stole!  More difficult than one imagines, as it's all seed stitch and boring.
SUCCESS!  Yes, I sucked in that moss stitch border and finished the knitting. I even managed to thread through the finishing line along the perimetre of the stole.
   

2) and once that's finished, start (but not finish!) the Bee Fields Shawl. I haven't quite decided on yarn, but a lot of people (yes, there's a knitalong) are using honey coloured yarn. I see a new stole shaped one as well, yikes. That's gorgeous too.

SUCCESS!   I'm a little further along than this photo shows; another 4 repeats are knitted.

3) Keep up with the Mystery Stole KAL.

SUCCESS!

4) Finish the second Marietta sock

SUCCESS!
 

5) Start and finish that baby garment which wasn't knitted in July.

SUCCESS!

6) Start and finish another baby garment for a September baby. It's the Debbie Bliss striped baby cardigan which I've knitted before but this time it's going to be blue and cream.

SUCCESS!

7) knit some socks.  Must use some of that sock yarn up!

Half done!

I'm on the second sock now, halfway down the leg of the sock.

I'm so pleased, I've managed over 6.5 for August.  Just this second sock to go!

 

Now for September - another seven goals.
1) block the Forest Path Stole, so that it's completely finished. Although I'm dreading doing this, it's really a hot wash and several hours pinning it out. I could probably manage it one evening, a lot less hours than knitting a garment.

2) finish the second Roza's sock, leftover from August.

3) finish the bee fields shawl knitting.  I can't promise two shawls blocked in one month!

4) knit some baby stuff for Brigid's Kisiizi appeal. She's having a knitting evening at Stash on 10th September, 7-9pm. 

5) some more socks - probably from my latest sock book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters.
I'm intrigued by some of the patterns (though not very enamoured with the prolific diagrams and repetitive instructions) and there's a great cast on for toe up socks! 

6) start a garment!  Now that the weather's cooling, I'm going to knit with some Kauni. The initial pattern is the Autumn Leaves cardigan, but there's a free kauni pattern out there too. All very nice. 

7) what for the seventh?  Probably another pair of socks. I'm trying to keep the number of wips low, I may get more finished!