skein

A few new projects

Ene's scarf, my eigth shawl for 10shawls2010.  (I haven't managed to get decent photos of my seventh shawl, which has been finished for several weeks).

I ordered the yarn when I had to order more for my Marvels stole, it's Blackberry Ridge's wool-silk blend laceweight, which I really like.

Ene's scarf is another bottom up. The cast on and first row is a bit of a nightmare, counting and recounting (and still 'losing' three stitches on the rirst row!). But there's something very nice about a decreasing stitch count.

Here's the progress 3/4 of the way through the first chart.

The second new project is actually my only UFO, started five years ago!  It's Martha, from Rowan 37, knitted in Rowan's discontinued 4ply cotton.

I think I have expanded somewhat since this was started, so it might be a little snug and short when it's finished, but with a front, a back and most of the first sleeve finished, it's a shame not to pick it up again. I shall have to see if I can fit into it again by next summer!

I thought I should start sewing it together, to see if I would have more sleeve issues!  So far, so good.

A close up of the pattern:

I'm up to the armhole shaping on the second sleeve.  So far, so good. This will be the ninth garment for IntSweMoDo2010.  I can't believe it!    It means I have 2 more shawls and 3 more garments to knit, once I finish these. Mind you, I feel a winter woolly accessory phase creeping in.

We had a long weekend and I decided to do a bit of stash rummaging. Didn't actually accomplish much (the winter yarns are still packed away, so these were summer or trans-seasonal yarns) but I do know where stuff is now!  Here's some of the packs of yarn...

:) I love my stash!

Lace Sampler progress

The weather here in London has been diabolical, rain, rain, rain.  I've not been able to get outside for photos, I can't believe that it's still August!  I even turned the heating on for a few hours!

 

Here's the progress for April, May and June.  Next month I'll catch up!  The close ups were taken indoors, on the sofa, so they colour's way off, but I did manage to sneak a quick outdoors photo, in my jammies! Ignoring the passers by!

April:

I forgot that this was a reverse st st background, and knitted half of May's the wrong way around, Frog, frog, frog.

May:

and June. More beads, but I may run out if there are any more beaded squares, and might have to resort to different coloured ones.

The beads look blue, the niting looks grey.  Not so.

and the progress so far:

In other knitting, I've not done much!  I have frogged Joy, which didn't get as far as a blog post, nor a ravelry project.  I think with the cold, wet weather I had no motivation to knit a denim cardigan. It didn't help that my tension was to pot, either.  I have, though, picked up a five year old UFO!  Martha, from Rowan 37.  I'm enjoying the knitting, but fear that it will be too small! I was about 20lbs lighter ...

Tesserae Socks

Pattern:  Tesserae by Knit Spot

Started: 7th August

Finished: 22nd August

Needles: 2.25mm

Yarn: Yarn Yard Cairn

This is the second time that i've used this pattern, something I normally don't do as there are so many sock patterns out there waiting to be knitted up, but it's a very simple pattern and I do like how it looks.

My camera seems to be playing up, the outside photos of the socks looked very pale and yellow!  So this above was taken indoors with my mobile!

Here's a close up of the pattern:

 

I've had a fairly good weekend as regards to knitting and crochet. I finished these socks, did well with the hexagons, managing to crochet the third round on the 36 circles. and finished a sleeve of Martha, which is sadly going to be a short, tight Martha!  I was about 20lbs lighter five years ago, and the cardigan's already short without having to accommodate extra girth!  Oh well, that's the incentive to get back into it for next summer!  I'm enjoying the knitting and with only a sleeve and front to go it would be a shame to abandon it again.

Hexagon blanket progress

I had a bit of a hiccup (again) last weekend, I forgot to do a round of chains, preceding the joining and shaping final round!  So those hexagons had to be frogged and re-attached.  Oh well,

This week, after doing that, I started another batch of hexagons. I really like doing them this way, Round 1 in all the colours, then rounds two and three, and finally, the last two rounds which join them to the rest of the blanket.

This time, I'm crocheting two rounds in each colour, so I have 36 done!

Round one:

(Sorry, taken by mobile and at night!)

Round two:

and a quick photo of the blanket so far:

 

A quick one, before leaving home this morning (no way was I going outside to lay it out nicely)

There's 56 hexagons done, and I will have to do lots more before it's big enough!

This weekend I'm giving Mr C a break (i.e. control of the remote) and going to visit the family.  I don't have much suitable knitting.  Socks will be finished this weekend, Joy (not blogged about yet) is attached to a kilo cone which I'm NOT lugging around, the lace sampler might be a bit too much if I have to keep putting it down to chat.  Baltic Blossoms is done, blocked, just need decent photos. Which leaves the crochet. I'm going to take all these circles and hopefully finish the third round this weekend. that's about 36 circles!  And just in case I run out of crochet (I'll be taking just the partial balls, not the whole blanket or rest of the yarn) I have found a maturing UFO in the stash!  It's Martha, was in Rowan 37, five years ago!  I suspect it might be a little ... tight, But it's nearly half done, and I could do with losing the extra poundage that's crept on these past few months!  I even kept a photocopy of the pattern with the half knitted garment, and the needles.  Several years ago I found a half knitted cardigan, an early Rowan one, cardigan with intarsia daisies, knitted in a discontinued wool-cotton blend.  I knitted the rest of the cardigan, went to seam it to discover that the newly knitted pieces were a few inches wider. Either my needles were  a different size or I'd altered my knitting tension in the intervening years. A lesson learnt, keep notes on sizing and needles!

Peace Cardigan

Pattern: Peace by Kim Hargreaves

Started on 4th July, finished on 15th August.

Needles: 3.5mm

Yarn: Rowan handknit dk cotton, 12 balls

Modifications - reworked the sleeve caps to make them much shorter and a little narrower. Reknitted the collar on smaller needles and for a shorter length, to try and pull in the cardigan a little, and added a few inches to the length, after the moss stitch peplum.

The top of the garment has a garter stitch detail (wish the photographer had told me to pull it down to get rid of the rumples!)

 

 

The three quarter length sleeves had a nice button detail

 

Now this nearly ended up on the frog pile!  I finished the knitting a few weeks ago, seamed the sleeve and side seams (as per instructions) and then set in the sleeves.  And they were really terrible.  Far too baggy.  I checked the smaller sizes, and the difference in stitch counts was negligible. So I reknitted the first sleeve cap and tacked it into place. It still looked horrible. That was it, it's been in the naughty corner since then. On a whim this morning I decided to reknit the second sleeve cap and rework the collar. It is far better now, just not as great as I thought it would be. I think it's the sleeves, I would have preferred them to be narrower.  And I now know that I'm not a fan of handknit dk cardigans. I have a few, but they are lace ones, not as weighty as this one. 

Thinking about this, I'm also not happy with Ali, another Kim Hargreaves pattern, which seems to be baggy around the upper sleeve and armhole. I hardly every wear this, and I'm sure that's why. I shall have to get it out and see if that's what the problem is. They're both v-necks too, wonder if they're just open a bit too much, sliding the cardigan off the shoulders a little.  I can't see anyone else having problems like this on ravelry!

This is the eighth garment for IntSweMoDo2010.  I'm now on the ninth, and guess what?  It's another Kim Hargreaves pattern!  Joy, from Nectar. I'm using Elann's Den-m-knit, and enjoying the pattern, though not so much the cotton yarn!

2010 Lace Sampler progress

As i've mentioned, I was late starting this, July, when everyone else was already on clue seven!  That'll teach me to procastinate!

So, January's clue was pretty straightforward and easy.

February's was a choice, between hard and soft love. Of course I went for hard love, this bee pattern reminds me of the wonderful Bee Fields Shawl. 

March was nupps and beads.  Well I struggled with this one. I was concurrently knitting on Baltic Blossoms, which has nupps as I love knitting them, with yarnovers each side. These were nupps withing the stockig stitch bit, and I don't think they are as pronounced without the yarnovers.  Wish I'd stuck with beads!

You can't really see the nupps nor beads, but they are there!  Here's the last two clues:

 

and progress so far.

 

I'm aiming to knit April's this week, but it's mid afternoon on Saturday and I haven't picked it up yet.  Good excuses though; I've made some soup and fruit salad, have finished knitting, and am now blocking, Baltic Blossoms!

Bee Socks

Another finished project, even if it is a small one!

Lorna's Laces plain, top down socks, in their Bee colours. 

60 stitches, 2.5mm needles, heel flap and gusset.

These stayed on the back burner for a few weeks whilst I took Peace into work as my commuting knitting, but once I picked them up again, they only took a few days to finish.

Started July 3rd, finished August 7th.

I think I've had my fill of Lorna's Laces for a few months, and have now moved onto other yarns!
This is the next one, it's Yarn Yard's Cairn and the pattern is one I've done before, Knitspot's Tesserae socks. It's just a simple ribbed pattern.

I used to knit a lot of textured socks, but I find I tend to wear the simpler paterns - etiher plain, a tiny bit of lace or beads, maybe a ribbed pattern. So out with the intricate lace and cables, and in with simpler patterns!

Hexagon blanket

A progress report!

I am enjoying this. The pattern I'm using, Lucy's Hexagon how-to, has you crocheting circles for three rounds,then you do a chain round in the final colour, and onto this round you do a joining round which converts the circles into squares.

I have a little routine.  Not for me crocheting the whole hexagon in one go  I get all the colours out, and crochet the first circles.  Then I crochet the second rounds. Then the third rounds and finally the joining round. It's great to see them developing.

This was this morning's shot - 18 soon-to-be hexagons.

 

There's still some little first circles in the bottom left.  I have decided to knot the joining colours and then weave them in as I go around the round (not sure what the crochet term is!!)

I'm going to have a crochet afternoon!

Here's a few progress photos (and I know I've shown some of these before, but I like to see it unfolding)

 

and this was taken after the last crochet session. 31 hexagons, but I've done another six since then.

 

There is no method to colour selection, though I try not to put nearly identical coloured hexagons next to each other.  I seem incapable of crocheting rows and columns though! 

There are quite a few, ahem, errors, in my hexagons, usually where i have done an extra cluster. Once I even managed to do a 5-tr cluster instead of a 3-tr cluster!  I don't care, I have fudged.  One of the disadvantages of joining as you go is that if you need to unpick one, and it's not the last one joined, you have to unpick several - I've had to do this when I joined them back to front!  I check now!

So if I manage to crochet all 18 hexagons today, that will bring the count up to 55!

Marvels of the Sunless Sea

Pattern: Marvels of the Sunless Sea by Hazel Carter (ravelry link here).

Started: February 8th

Finished: August 1st (blocked)

Needles: 3mm

Yarn: Blackberry Ridge Thistledown, approx1575 yds. It took just over three skeins (had to order another one, which held things up a bit).

 
It's extremely difficult to fit it in a photo!

Here's half:

The edging nearly killed me, those little rows, and double yarnovers!

This is the seventh shawl for 10shawls2010, and a biggie at that.  Even Mr C. can hide behind it!

 

As can I

The blocked measurements are 68 x 30 inches, just as well, as it's blocked on the bed which is 74".

It's knitted in two halves, from edging to centre and grafted, which was quite tedious as Thistledown is a single and I have to be very careful about the yarn breaking or twisting too much. Then the side edges are knitted on. It's mainly knitted lace, rather than lace knitting with about a dozen plain rows in the whole stole.

I knew that this would be a long term project, and I took it slowly, knitting on several other (smaller) shawls during this time. 

It's marvellous to have finished it!  And the blocking brings out the lace pattern, all those fishies!