skein

Biting the bullet

I've joined NaBloPoMo!   Am I mad, or what?   A blog post for each day in November, when I can hardly manage two knitting posts per week!

All you have to do is blog each day in November, with no back-dated posts.  There's a ravelry group and forums set up on the NaBloPoMo site for mutual encouragement.

I think I'll have to organise my days and allocate different topics to different days of the week.   Right up my street!

I can think of one or two bloggers who would find this a challenge - go on, join up!

Secret of the Stole, hints 3 and 4

A quick post. It's 1.40am, way past my bedtime.  I've lost my camera somewhere in the flat, and have had to resort to my camera phone (in dim light!) for an update photo.

I've hardly knitted this week, and when I've been knitting, it's been Secret of the Stole (with a slight diversion for my ISE5 scarf).

Hints 3 and 4.  As my stole is turning out slightly bigger than the given measurements (which in this instance I'm happy with) I'm doing one less repeat on hint 4.

I had a reunion on Friday evening, and drank far too much wine.  Good job Chris was there, he was responsible for getting me and a an old friend back to the flat!  My friend ended up crashing on the sofa, something we haven't done for decades.  Her 17yo daughter phoned to check up on her too, how things change!

Chris dragged me out on Saturday for a walk to clear the hangover.  We went to visit the marina where our boat will be moored, yes, we have a mooring!  It's in Surrey Quays, great for work.

I can catch a river taxi into work!  And this is the view a few minutes from the marina.

The boat needs a fair bit of work doing (mainly cosmetic), so we'll probably spend weekends there (weather permitting, of course).  I rather fancy sitting knitting, enjoying the views, if I can get away with it!

ISE5 - scarf exchange

I've been reading the ISE5 blog, and although the scarves don't need to be received until December, quite a few participants seem to have finished their scarves already.

My pal doesn't mind which type of scarf she gets, and this time around I've decided to do a long and skinny scarf - Eve, by Kim Hargreaves.

The kit arrived on Friday (a few weeks late, we've had a postal strike here in SE London and our post is severely delayed).
Bright pink and purple!  The purple's a royal purple colour, not as blue as in this photo.

It's 87" long, knitted in two pieces and joined in the middle.  There's a beaded ruffled edging, then a simple striped pattern for the rest of the scarf.

This is fairly representative of the colour

and these show the pattern.
 

It's such a simple pattern but very effective, with the Kid Silk Haze. You just can't go wrong with this stuff!

Bee Fields Shawl update

This was one of my October goals, to finish the knitting on this shawl.  Well, I don't think I'm going to manage that!  I haven't blogged about this since the 16th of September, when I'd just started the bee swarm section.  Today I finished that section! 

I found it very tedious, and although it's immediately apparent if you make a mistake, I made plenty, had to tink back far too many times!  I think it's because there's lace knitting on every row, and most of my wrongside rows went wrong.  I don't want to put anyone off this pattern.  I don't use markers, and tend to memorise the pattern for each row as I come to it, by counting in my head or looking for logical patterns.  Then I started watching tv and made silly mistakes.  It only needs a little concentration and stitch markers!  A very pretty pattern.

I am back in love with this shawl, now that I've finished this section. Mind you, that's very common with me when I knit this type of shawl with different bands of patterns; I have great enthusiasm when I start each pattern, then flag mid-pattern, and get some speed up when I'm nearing the end of the pattern. Same with borders of shawls, that's my very best part of knitting a shawl, as it's so close to the end. 

Unfortunately this ate up my Sunday knitting time, and I haven't worked on the Secret of the Stole this weekend. Must catch up.

Forest Canopy

More fantastic photos - indoor, dim lights, crumpled bed sheet!

Forest Canopy Shawl
 

Pattern: Forest Canopy Shawl
Needles: 3.5mm circulars
Yarn:  Less than 100g Yarn Yard's merino tencel, which knits up as a sport/dk weight.
Notes:  I opted for small needles so that the fabric isn't as open or lacy, as the yarn is variegated.  I knitted another repeat and still had stacks left over. No idea how much, as I gave it away!

It makes a lovely shoulder shawl.   

Secret of the stole, hint 2

Phew!  A really long clue!  84 rows.  I think it took me about 8 hours to knit.  Unfortunately I finished late on Sunday, and my stupid camera wouldn't focus in a dim light, so I've had to retake the photo tonight (with the bedside lamp held in one hand, camera in the other, background the bed).  Not brilliant photos, but you can see the mammoth chunk of knitting that's hint 2.

Hint 1 recap

And hint 2

I'm knitting this with black beads, not very obvious but I like them (and they're the only ones which were the correct size and not too much of a contrast; I didn't want sparkly, nor bright)
Here's a close up of the beads (clickable)

I have no idea what the theme is.  Next clue is due on Friday, and I'm going to try to knit on this on Saturday, so that I can get a daylight photo. The only other option is to take it into work and photograph it midday on one of the pub tables.  It's a bit embarrassing doing this when the punters are outside drinking and smoking though!

Ally Pally stash enhancement

A mega stash enhancement at that!  I concentrated on sock and lace yarns this time, though this was more by chance than design.

The haul (lots of photos!). Now I missed out loads of stands, intending to go back later on - and didn't manage it. I never made it to one hall at all!

From Get Knitted

Opal Rainforest, Lorna's Laces sock yarn in Envy and Parfait (the last two skeins, so I thought I ought to buy it), and some Handmaiden Lace Silk in Periwinkle.
     

From Woolly Workshop (who had Cherry Tree Hill yarns)

some Orenburg Lace, Pot Luck Supersock in earth shades, Solid Supersock in burgundy, Sock-it-to-me sock yarn in Spanish Moss.

 

     

Shilasdair cashmere handspun (gorgeously soft!)

Hipknits laceweight cashmere (do you see a theme here?)

Mobair Kid Mohair and Silk Lace. Yvonne gave me a skein of her alpaca silk last year and I loved it so much I thought I'd try some more of her stuff.  No website, unfortunately, but she does a lot of the shows.
I bought some lovely buttons and a couple of ... woggles as well. (Chris tells me this is what they're called in the Cubs and Scouts - for fastening scarves).

Knit 'n' Caboodle

This is a new to me company selling sock yarns. They also stock some patterns - Heartstrings, Cookie A sock patterns and Bees Knees childrens patterns (using sock yarn).

Admiral R Druck sock yarn (this feels similar to the other German sock yarns out there, she had a deal, 3 balls for £12.50) - 3 balls, and 2 balls of Opal Uni (and patterns, not photographed)
 

I succumbed to some Sanquhar glove patterns from Euro japan Trading Co and also bought some cream and black laceweight yarn (J&S yarn)

Another new to me company was Socktopus, selling sock yarn and various other paraphernalia  (needles, knitting bags, a few books - more at their site)

Dream in color Smooshy,Shelridge Farm Soft Touch Ultra, and Chameleon Colorworks Evolution, a stretched merino sport weight wool (feels wonderful).

 

And finally, my last port of call was Knitwitches. Fabulously friendly women, and great yarns (which is why I bought rather a lot!)

Let's start with the sock yarn.

70% blue faced leicester, 30% nylon

3 skeins - Plums, Purple Light and Storm Foam.

Gossamer Dreams Kid Mohair 800m/50g

2 skeins, Ripe Cherries and Jade Seas

More cashmere laceweight - 900m/100g in Deeply Turquoise

Some silk, a laceweight in colour Irene, and a dk weight in colour Blackcurrant Sundae.

That's it!  Well apart from some magazines and buttons. I didn't have time to see at least half a dozen other stalls which I wanted to see.  I bought a few kits (not knitting) for gifts as well which I can't blog about.

Time to update flickr and ravelry now!

 

Secret of the Stole

Clue 1 completed.

I'm using Colourmart's 3/28 heavy lace weight cashmere (much easier to knit with than the 2/28 lace, even if it still feels like string in its oiled state) and 3.5mm addi lace needles.

The colour is Loden, and makes a refreshing change from the last two finished stoles - both light blue. The Bee Fields is lemon with bits of blue, so it's nice to be knitting with a darker yarn.

I took this photo very late at night, and in my tired state decided on an orange background, so this photo is pretty ghastly,very seventies!  I'll try to ensure the next photo is in daylight or at the very least has a better background.

Roll on clue 2 on Friday!

A few finished things

Wow, nearly a week since I last blogged!  I spent the first three evenings this week sorting out ... my new laptop!  It's still not sorted, my pda doesn't like it, but amazingly I've managed to sort out the rubbish that's pre-installed, even the av software, which I normally have problems with. It's a pain trying to remember my sign in names for sites, but I'm sure that I'll get there, eventually.

I also went home for a few days, which meant that I could do some knitting.

Here's the Regia socks for Chris

Regia Multi-Effekt Color

68 sts on 2.25 dpns.

Excuse the background (my duvet), as half the bed was taken up with my other FO:

Forest Canopy Shawl

Yarn Yard's merino-tencel dk, one of the merino club's offerings. I had quite a bit left over, despite knitting an extra repeat on the body and a few extra edging rows. I think it's down to using smaller needles than I'd normally use for dk lace (3.5mm!). A wonderful quick knit, and the pattern is such an easy one to memorise.

I haven't started the Secret of the Stole mystery kal yet, I've just had a look at the pattern and it requires two balls of yarn, meeting in the middle, so I won't be using my cone of Colourmart cashmere!  I'm going to have a look at my other lace yarns now, see if I can find something already wound up into two balls.  I'd better have a look through the (millions of) messages on the yahoo site too, in case I can knit a two coloured stole!

I hope to get back to the Bee Fields shawl and the Autumn leaves cardigan - soon! 

September knitting and October goals

The move did now help the knitting!  We are still bogged down with stuff that needs unpacking / chucking / recycling. 
I went out Saturday and knitted at Stash, which did not help the unpacking.
Sunday we had to do shopping and general cleaning up. Then I tackled the stash - not all of it!  Just the bits that were in boxes or blue storage bags. Impossible to move!

You can see some peeking out from under the bed.  There's still bags in and on top of the wardrobe.  I have so much to log and tidy up!

I may be tempting fate, but I seem to have some concentration back for knitting - I knitted another 8 rows on the Bee Fields shawl yesterday which was great, considering how much other stuff we had to do. 

So, my September knitting didn't quite go as planned.

1) block the Forest Path Stole, so that it's completely finished.
Success!  I managed to block it, but the great outdoors shots haven't happened.  I did manage a few outdoor shots, but most were rubbish (Chris just can't even centre a subject!)
Here's some anyway
       

It's really long! We did take some wrapped around photos, but they weren't very good. That's Chris holding it out in the second and third photo, btw.  You can see that this cashmere (Colourmart 2/28 lace weight) is so fine that even a slight breeze has it blowing around.  Lovely.

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

Success!

A great pattern for a simple ribbed-like sock.

3) finish the bee fields shawl knitting. 

Failure! Blame the move.  I hope to finish this in October.

4) knit some baby stuff for Brigid's Kisiizi appeal.

Success!

(The pink sock was frogged but the other stuff went to Brigid)

5) some more socks - probably from my latest sock book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters.

Failure!

But that's down to The Move, and losing the second ball of Regia sock yarn!

6) start a garment! 

Success!

Autumn Leaves Cardigan.

I haven't started the actual pattern yet, but the ribbings done. Again, The Move sucked all of my knitting concentration out of my brain, so this has been put on hold until I feel compus mentis again.

7) what for the seventh?  Probably another pair of socks.

Success! Though not socks, and not blocked.
The very simplest shawl pattern - Forest Canopy. No concentration needed, and a very quick knit to boot.

This is merino tencel from the Yarn Yard Merino Club. Very nice stuff.  I think my shoulder shawl may be smaller than the given measurements, because I went right down on needle size to give a less lacy look.  Mind you, blocking is still a surprise to me!

Five out of seven isn't that bad, especially as The Move has sucked 9 days out of the month.

I've managed to start a denim blanket too. I'm on square square 7 (out of 81) .

Here's the first six squares:

OCTOBER GOALS

1) Finish the Bee Fields Shawl (but we won't include blocking it, as I may not have the space!), September's failure

2) Finish the Regia socks which I didn't do in September.

3) Block the Forest Canopy shawl (this should be easy, it's small!)

4) Continue working on the Autumn Leaves Cardigan. Maybe I can knit up to the armholes?

5) Start and keep up with the clues for the Secret of the Stole KAL. Yes, another one!
I've chosen the yarn - it's Colourmart cashmere, in Loden, and it's slightly thicker than the cashmere which I used for the Forest Path Stole, a 3/28 one this time. 

6) I might start another quick shawl pattern from Evelyn Clarke's Knitting lace triangles.  Just a quick shoulder shawl, now  the weather's warmer.

7) Start on my ISE5's scarf. This has to be posted at the end of November, and I don't want a last minute rush.

 

I haven't included new socks,nor denim squares, but I expect I might find time to knit on these as well!