skein

September knitting and October goals

This month seems to have whizzed by!  I didn't even check my progress this month, so it will be a bit of a surprise..

1) Blog about Baltic Blossoms. Done!

2) Finish Ene's scarf, the eight shawl for 10shawls2010. Done!  But need a photo session.

3) Start the ninth shawl for 10Shawls2010.  I haven't given much thought to that, but browsing the ravelry group will immediately bring up dozens of must-knits! Bummer!  Haven't started this one yet.

4) Finish Martha, the ninth garment for IntSweMoDo2010. Done!

5) Start the tenth garment for IntSweMoDo2010. Started!  It's Acorns, from Twist. Not much done so far, I have spent rather a lot of time finishing things.

6) knit some birthday socks.  Done!  In the nick of time. Need to blog. I changed yarn, went for an airforce blue instead.

7) Hexagon blanket - two more colomns (12 hexagons) and four rows (35 hexagons) - will be a challange!  Done!  Finished!  Need to blog. 

I'm very pleased, six out of seven things done, and I finished the Hexagon blanket.  Oh, and I forgot to include in my list the Lace Sampler, managed to catch up with the knitalong!

 

Now for October. I initially thought I'd love to have a break and knit lots of new winter accessories.  But we have NaBloPoMo coming up in November, which I've done for the past two years, where I'll be blogging every day for a month.  Accessories and small stuff is ideal for this. So I'll carry on with shawl and garment knitting in October.

1) knit the October clue for the Lace Sampler knitalong.

2) blog about the FOs from September:  Hexagon blanket, birthday socks, Martha, Ene's scarf.

3) Finish Acorns, my 10th garment for IntSweMoDo2010.

4) knit some man socks. Mr C gets two pairs in December, birthday and Christmas, so I need to get going. At least they'll be self patterning!

5) Start my 11th garment. No idea what, but i found some red Austermann Inka alpaca/wool last ngiht which has gone straight into the knitting box under the coffee table. That's a good sign I might try to find a pattern to go with it.

6) Start my 9th shawl for 10shawls2010

7) do a bit of simple crochet. I've started a treble circle, but it seems to be curliing a tiny bit. It may be ok, but I may have to get the calculator out and see if my increases are sufficient. Urgh.

8) Start my 12th garment for IntSweMoDo10.

9) Start my 10th shawl for 10shawls2010.

Now these last two things seem a bit crazy, I may end up with two shawls and two garments on my needles as I go into November!  But it will mean that these two challenges will be at least on the needles, and I will have at least some of November, and December free for impulsive knitting,

Knitting catch up

Well.  This ought to be a Finished post.  I've finished three projects this week!  However. the camera seems to have gone a bit mad.  I don't know it things can go wrong with a digital, but all the photos were a bit overexposed, despite trying different settings.  I have the old camera battery charging (how on earth did I manage to find both old camera and its odd battery charger?)

So, instead, some teasers. I shall have to dust the old camera and try to get more photos next weekend.

Martha - is finished. 

It's too short and has the sort of button band which gapes.  Now this is it lying on the ground, imagine it on a person!  I do like it though, ,it's lightweight and will be fine for summer on cool days. 

Hexagon blanket - is finished.

Today I did the final round of dc in lilac. I wanted a green, but ran out 3/4 of the way around!  It's taken me hours to sew in all the ends (which weren't crocheted in as I went). 

Ene's Scarf - is finsihed.

So pleased that these three are finished!

On the needles are just three things.

1) Lace sampler.  I'm up to date so am just waiting for the next clue, due in October.

2) Birthday socks.  Found out on Friday evening (when Mr C popped a birthday card into the shopping trolley) that his father's birthday is next week, not the week after. I rely on him to remind me, but I need a bit more notice!  At the time I had only reached the heel of sock #1.  I did just sock knitting yesterday, and have finished the first sock and am halfway down the leg of the second sock.  I should be working on it now!

3) Acorns cardigan.  I've not blogged about this (I don't think).  Not much to see though, it's top down,  I need to knit a bit more than two inches!  That's tonight's knitting.

Nothing else on the needles.  I need to get a new shawl going, and maybe some crochet! 

 

 

Baltic Blossoms

This has been finished for over five weeks- and still no decent photos!  I think it's a mix of the colour, weight of yarn, camera shake and gusts of wind (which only happen when I go outside to get a photo).  So there's a lot here, but it's better in real life! The points are all even (it was the wind blowing it about, honest!.

Pattern: Baltic Blossoms by Evelyn Clark

Started: July 15th

Finsihed: August 15th

Needles: 3.25mm

Yarn: Zephyr, in a lovely peacock blue (much darker than in these photos) - about 650 yards, just over a skein. 

The colour is closer to this one:

 

A few close ups of the nupps - I do like nupps with yarnovers before and after, though I can't tell you how many times my purl 5tog included the yarnovers, quite annoying!

 

All in all, a lovely knit.  This is my seventh shawl for 10shawls2010.  Another three to go (and the next one was cast off today, just needs blocking!!)

 

 

Martha is knitted ...

but not quite finished. I have a few dozen ends and eight buttons to sew on.  Buttons are ordered. I'm using, again, some shell buttons. I have loads, but not eight in one type!

Now normally when I'm on the last piece of a garment, I start thinking about the next one (well, certainly since I've been part of IntSweMoDo ... 12 garments a year).  This time, however, nothing. Thursday night I sat there with my shawl knitting wondering why I had no desire to cast on another garment.

Slept on it.  Friday, problem solved!  I have had my eye on two designs in the latest Twist Collection, Acorns and Hallett's Ledge.  I had another look on ravlry, then had another look at my flickr packs of yarn, and made up my mind. I bought both. 

Acorns - plan was to use some Elann superwash Bamboo, which is a bit of a misnomer as it's bamboo/wool blend.  I'd heard reports that this fuzzes up a lot, but I'm going to risk it. I managed to get good tension, and I don't think it will be so disastrous if it fuzzes up.

I took this photo indoors so it's not great, but that's a greyish blue. I like knitting with this stuff, wish I hadn't ebayed the other two packs!

I've had some olive Debbie Bliss cashmerino in stash for years. This, I thought, would make a great Hallett's Ledge.   Not so. It looked a little flimsy and floppy.  So back tot he stash. I also have seom Rowan Magpie in stash, still the same tension but it's much sturdier. 

Must get an outdoors shot!  It's nearly at tension too, so I shall use this one.  I wasn't too impressed about the instructions for tension in this pattern. Nothing puts me off as much as having to knit a tension square in pattern rather than stocking stitch, especially if I then have to go and hunt for the relevent bit of pattern.This pattern went one step further to grump me out, and told me it's in cabled rib pattern. Um, where is the pattern for cabled ribbing? Does the designer mean the ribbing bit?  Searched ravelry for a clue, and she means the actual charted pattern, which  isn't called cable ribbing anywhere and imo is not really a ribbing pattern! I'm also not too impressed with the shaping. It's worked at the side of the ribbing section, and so the ribs are eaten up into the side seam. it looks a bit messy. I need to sit down and see how many decreases aer worked and if I can maybe fit them into the purl sections,  spreading them around the  width rather than at the side.   I'm thinking of starting iwth extra purl stitches and decreasing these. If it doesn't work I shan't do decreasing; after all, it's ribbing and I'm useing wool.  Next month's problem!

Oh and the socks are coming on.

What?!! They seem to have changed colour from dark grey??? That's because my dark grey yarn was so hopelessly knotted that I've given up and gone with this. Fingers crossed that I don't encounter the same problem, must be more careful!

Knitting catch up

Today's International Crochet day!  I shall get out the hexagon blanket and start doing those hexagons.  So this post is about my knitting.  Progress!

1) Martha.  Knitting is done. I stayed up until 1.37am on Friday night, because I thought I might run out of yarn (discontinued Rowan 4 ply cotton). Silly, but I couldn't go to bed thinking I might have to nick a bit from the bottom of each sleeve!   I did run out of yarn, with 20 sts to cast off, but I have a few ends and used one of those,. I will have enough to sew on the buttons  but not enough for the seaming on the right side. I have a darker shade of  4ply cotton which ought to be ok though. 

 2) The Lace Sampler. I've finally caught up! 

July, August and September done!  Not too keen on September, but the others are fine (though Bees pattern is still the winning one).I've ran out of blue beads, so it's silver ones now.  I can't capture them on a photo though. They're verrry pretty.

 Here it is so far.  Nearly there!

 

3) Ene's scarf.  Love knitting this, love Blackb erry Ridge wool/silk blend, it's quite a heavy laceweight.  I love knitting a shawl whose rows are getting shorter!  Just the main body lace now, very easy to memorise. 

4) socks started, twice.  It's unlabelled, but I think it's Trekking, in a dark colour.  Birthday gift for the beginning of October.  I've restarted these several times, gone down a needle size too. It's ahuge tangled mess!  Not as light as shown here.

 I'm very pleased with the knitting at the moment, trying to get a few things finished (so that I can cast on a few more of course!)

We have a great time at IKL weekender yesterday too, No photos at all. I didn't buy from several stands which interested me, but there's a list of  exhibiters on the ravelry IKL group, and I certainly will be looking at the stuff which interested me.   Lots of lovely knitters there too, whom I haven't seen for ages.  Oh, and I learnt how to do double filet crochet!  It's funny that I am so unconfident in crochet, that has to by next year's resolution, to try to improve!

More hexagons update

I have been knitting!  I just haven't taken any photos of current wips, and my camera's sd card is at work, so no decent photos of Baltic Blossoms, either.  We had a go outside with the phone camera, but (as usual) it suddenly started gusting!

So.  Here are the final hexagons for the blanket. After these I think I'll just do half hexagons and edging.

Little first round circles - all 46 of them.

46 2-round circles.

About 40 3-round circles.  I have left the others to see if they're needed (I think they will be) and because I have ran out of a few colours, not sure yet if I will buy a few more balls. I don't want this to the be never ending blanket, where  I try to use up every scrap of yarn!

Can't wait to start doing that final, joining round!

 

Hexagon blanket progress for August

I'm still having fun!

This last week I crocheted the third round of circles.

That's 36 circles.  I used each of the 18 colours twice for each round.  I'm getting near the end of a few colours, so will be working outwards from now on, not that it will be noticeable, with such a mish mash of colour.  I could go out and buy some of the colours, the ones not discontinued, but I want to use up what I have, rather than adding to it.

It's now the size of a small blanket.

It's so cheerful!  It's not perfect, you'd be surprised how often my 3 tr clusters morph into 5 tr clusters, or how the 12 tr become 11 or even 10!  I just fudge, it's for me!

I can't imagine crocheting anything other than blankets (haven't come across socks or garments which I like, yet) but for blankets, cushion covers, coasters, it's brilliant ! I already have my eye on a baby cashmerino Babette, and I discovered the Noro stash last week!  I really don't want to knit a Noro garment, but it might be great for Granny Squares!

August knitting and September goals

A very successful month!

1) Lace - block Marvels stole. Done!

2) Lace - finish Baltic Blossoms. Done!  I need to get decent photos, though here's a teaser:

3) Lace - knit March-June of the Lace Sampler. Done!

4) Garment - finish Peace - done!  Though it still may be frogged...

5) Garment - start the ninth garment for IntSweMoDo2010. Done!  It's a UFO, Martha.

6) Crochet - get a move on with my Hexagon blanket. I want to get at least 25 more hexagons joined. Done!

7) Finish the Lorna's Laces Bee Socks. Done!

8) Start the ninth shawl for 10 shawls in 2010.  Done!

9) Start some more socks, possibly patterned?  Done!

All nine goals achieved, wow!

Now for September.  I want to get a move on with shawls and garments, I need to start knitting for Christmas/birthdays/cold weather accessories in October.

1) Blog about Baltic Blossoms.

2) Finish Ene's scarf, the eight shawl for 10shawls2010.

3) Start the ninth shawl for 10Shawls2010.  I haven't given much thought to that, but browsing the ravelry group will immediately bring up dozens of must-knits!

4) Finish Martha, the ninth garment for IntSweMoDo2010.

5) Start the tenth garment for IntSweMoDo2010. I have a few in mind, love Acorns and Hallett's Ledge from Twist!

6) knit some birthday socks. I've pulled some nearly black Trekking from stash.  Plain, boring and for a large man's foot. Urgh.

7) Hexagon blanket - two more colomns (12 hexagons) and four rows (35 hexagons) - will be a challange!  Of course, if I run out of yarn before this the blanket stays small and I shall start half hexagons.

Hands full again this month!