skein

Ringing out 2013

I hope that everyone had a lovely Christmas.  We had a very quiet Christmas, just the two of us. 

I did a little shawl blocking,

Better Together, a ravelry MKAL.

I did a little scarf blocking

Boo Humbug! , another ravelry MKAL.

I did some knitting.  

Kraka, third time lucky I hope.  My tension was out, so it's been sat here waiting for me to frog it and restart in a size smaller. This I did on Christmas day, but had to frog again when I realised that I was using a size smaller needles AND knitting a size smaller.  I've gone up a size but kept the smaller needles.

But the majority of the time off work I babetted.

The blanket is a mix of two, four, six, eight, ten and twelve round squares.  The consturction is similar to a log cabin, with each panel being progressively larger,  I'd already joined six of the panelts, just another (ever increasing) four to go!

My plan was to crochet all of the larger squreas (done) and leave the smallest, the two and four round squares till last.  I'm using the leftovers from my Groovyghan, and didn;t want to run short of colours on the larger, outer rounds.

Panels seven and eight went well, but nine and ten had loads of two arnd foru round squares to crochet, and I started getting a bit anxious aobut running out of colours, so I've now done all fo the crochet for all of the squares, with (hopefully) enough left for the border.

24 two round squares and the start of the four round squares.

 All 24 of the four round squares

 

The next job is to join these last two panels, sew them all together, and wrok the  border.  I'm having a little break for the moent.  Mr C rna the vacuum around my knitting chair, and sent me a text 'hoover looks like it sucked in someone wearing a multi coloured jumper' Oops.

I'm not going to have New Year resolutions this year.  I always seem to fail!  But will persevere with trying to knit from stash and join as many KALs as I can manage!

 

Happy New Year!

Socks, mystery shawl, mystery scarf

I've  not been blogging much, as i feel like I haven't been knitting much, but I do have a little bit of knitting progress.

Socks for a Christmas present. Really dragged my knitting hands with these.  No pattern or stripes to keep me motivated.  I spent THREE evenings reknitting the toe. And it still looks scrappy. I have looser stitches near the sides, on the toe.  Next time I shall do magic looping from the centre of the toe, my stitches at the ends of the needles are tidier in plain stocking stitch than with toe decreases one stitch in. Not my bestest knitting!

 

And two mysteries.

First up is the Better Together  Mystery shawl.  This is the first of four Mystery KALs throughout the year. All using two colours.  

 

It's garter stitch, with a few slipped stitches and some travelling stitches.  I found it quite difficult to just knit the travelling stitch, I think I usually knit these with a purl background and they're twisted!  It's bottom up and I ran out of burgundy with two stripes to go!  I found a nearly identical shade, just a little bit darker. I'm pleased that I didn't go for a strong contrast in the last two stripes!  Spot the difference!

Next up is Boo Humbug!, a mystery scarf kal,  I've rediscovered my love of knitting with beads, these are nice and big, and my first attempt with triangular beads.  As I bought three differenet colours, I thnk I'l have to knit some other beaded knits soon!

 I'm on the final clue, this was taken just before finishing for penultimate clue.  

 You can't really see the beads, but they are there, sparkling!

There is also lace

Now I'm not really a scarf knitting person, but I've really enjoyed this KAL. I couldn't quit keep up with the vast number of ravelry forum posts though :)

Currently I'm casting off, picot style, the first edge.  LOVE the ruffled edge. I'm thinking that I may not block it out into points as I like the ruffle so much. 

This will be my last post for the next week, so have a lovely Christmas, Hope everyone has lovely knitterly presents from Santa and lots of knitting time!

Knitting revisited - In Dreams shawl

One of my current Mystery KALs involves beads, and it's reminded me of another Mystery KAL from 2011 which involved beads.  It nearly killed me, all of  those beads! It's the In Dreams shawl. 

I had been to a knitting group and one of the knitters Fiona (hi!) had brought hers along. It was gorgeous, and I immediately went home, bought th pattern and cat on.  

From April to June 2011 I diligently worked on this. It's knitted in Wollmeise Lace yarn in bright red.  I  used a million red beads.  The beads were added with a tiny crochet hook.  I'd bought cehap beads = irregular holes.  Some were too tiny to fit through the crochet hook. By the time I'd finished I was truly over beads, and I've lost a couple of the tiniest hooks I had!   

The lace pattern is not one for tinking or frogging, should you drop a stitch. Many an evening I'd be trying to reknit a section!  

It is a beautiful shawl and the beads lend it weight. A real pity that the beads just don't show up in the photos!

ravelry link here, blog link here. 

Knitting revisited - Boreal

 

Apparantly it's Children in Need Wear your Christmas Jumper Day today.  So here's mine.  It's Boreal. I didn't actually knit it for Christmas, but started it on Chritmas day in 2011.

Knitted in Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride Worsted, it's both a quick knit and a warm one!  I'm pretty certain that it's knitted bottom up, so the best bit (the yoke) is knitted last when motivation might be flagging. 

ravelry link here, blog link here. 

Boo Humbug Mystery KAL

Another KAL!  I joined the Booknits ravelry group a few weeks before this KAL was announceed, good timing!  I've never knitted one of her patterns, but, judging by the forum posts, they seem very popular.  

So I've dived in.  I can't believe I have two MKALs going on when I ought to be knitting Christmas gifts!  

I bought the actual yarn too, Fyberspates Faery Wings.  I have lots of 4ply stash, mainly though in lone 100g skeins, and I needed two skeins for this KAL.  

I had my doubts though.  

1) One of the fibres is kid mohair. I tend to avoid mohair. I once made a kid silk  haze wrap, lovely, but not great next to my skin!  

2) The colour I chose was magenta. A bit worried it might be that bright girly pink.

Well, on both counts I'm pleased.  The yarn has a large proportion of silk, which seems to eliminate the itchiness of the mohair.   And the colour is not so pinky pink.  In fact, when it arrived at work two people commmented on it being a nice colour.  

The colour is slightly more blue than these photos show. What I think of as magenta!

I needed more beads of course.  One of the stores mentioned in the group was Crystals and Ice in Cardiff.  I know zilch about beads. I know I use size 6/0 for 4ply and dk,  and size 8/0 for lace and 4 ply (at a push!) but size 5/0 triangular beads?  I had to phone them up and ask them about their descriptions, like an idiot.  The guy was so friendly, and even asked me if I was knitting a Boo-knits pattern, as they had had a lot of sales in these and size 6/0 beads (bet lots of calls too!).

I wanted sparkle rather than obvious,and he recommended rainbow beads. Of course I bought three lots, some pink, some silver lined and some rainbow.  The pink ones go well but don't really stand out. The silver lined ones are pretty and silvery, but I like the rainbow best for this project.  Clear, but sparkly.  

Clue one  is just knittin a 14 row pattern repeat, no lace or beads.  Very monotonous and it took me forever.  I started off with diffeent needles, couldn't work out if I wanted bamboo, metal, straights or circulars.  Originally I went with the recommended needle sizes, and the fabric was fine, but I worried that it would be too wide once blocked, so I've gone down a few sizes. It's still wide, but a teeny bit 'tighter'.  

I used the whole skein, did 18 repeats plus the ten rows stated.

Clue 2 was shorter, involved lace and beads, and hence was really interesting! 

Felted clogs

More felted clogs, my third pair in recent months.

these are knitted in Cascade 220, using up the pink,  a reveral of thes ones.  

The girls can fight over who gets which ones!

Erica hat

This was the Mystery KAL on the Woolly Wormhead ravelry group.  I bought the correct yarn :) a nice break form stash diving. 

The hat came in two styles, a peaked brim or a slouchy beret style with ribbing. I chose the latter.  Very simple textured pattern, made with reverse stocking stitch and travelling k1tb stitches.  We haen't had a great day to show off the pattern, it's been quite overcast and I have to rely on Mr C to try to take the photo.

 

 

Knitting revisited - Reindeer Games socks

It's December!  I can revisit something which I associate with Christmas!

It's the Reindeer Game socks.  

A few years ago I was a member of Red Bird Knits sock club. I think that we received something every other month.  And as usualy, I soon lost the plot, and had a stack of sock kits waiting ot be knitted up.  

I finally tackled this one, determined that it would be finished for Christmas day. I started them on 9th and finished them on 19th December 2009.  Put them away and wore them as housesocks on Christmas morning.   Too thick for boots, but lovely and warm (stranded!) for slipper socks.  

ravelry link here, blog link here. 

Better Together Mystery Shawl KAL

This KAL is the first of four mystery KALs hosted by You & I MKAL ravelry group. All are shawls, all are using two colours.  I normally only do MKALs by recommendation, ro if I've knitted the desinger's designs before.  This was one I thought I'd try out (whilst I have this KAL mania) as it's a simple two colour design, and it's a bottom up. Always love a bottom up shawl. It kills at first, all of those long rows, but I do appreciate this construction method as I near the finishing post!

Very simple garter stitch pattern, with slipped stitches.

The yarn I'm using was in my anonymous/Shetland type 4 ply yarn box.  The red is a burgundy red not as pinkish as here. I originally chose a pink yarn to go with it. but when I picked it up to start using, descovered it was more like a dk weight yarn. Only later did I realised it was Cascade 220 for my felted clogs!  And just Sunday evening I discovered the 4ply pink ball, it had rolled under the table!  Never mind, the second colour is a lavender shade, goes quite well, I nearly chose a golden yellow, but didn't have enough.  As is, I think I may run out of the red. Very little left. Gulp. Might have to find a similar shade to continue. Only the next clues will tell!

November knitting and December knitting goals

November has sped by!  I didn't quite make my total, hardly surprising, when I had eleven goals!

November goals:

Blog:

1) Lush Baby cardigan  Done!

Finish:

2) Plain blue Opal socks. Xmas knitting.  FAIL!  Still on the  needles, thogh Ih ave managed to finish the first and knit a few inches of the second. 

Start and finish: 

(all for Christmas!)

3) Felted clogs 1  Done! 

4) Felted clogs 2  Done!  Just not blogged yet. THese ones are bluetops with pink soles and trim.

5) Hat 1  Done!  Wurm.  

6) Hat 2 Done!  FAIL!  It's another Wurm, but only just started.  

7) Hat 3 (for a toddler, who wants a bloody pompom!)  FAIL!  I think thepom pom put me off!

8) Another toddler cardigan for a second birthay,  FAIL!  

Start and finish (may not be for Christmas knitting, but Ill wiat and see!)

9) WoollyWormhead's Mystery hat KAL.  Done!  I need to blog it.

10) Inspiration knits ravelry group KAL  Dibe!  

11) You and I ravelry group mystery shawl KA  Done!  Well, I'm ikn the middle of knitting this, but I've kept up with all of the clues.

So, seven stars to me.

I usually spend the first half of December frantically finihsing off things for Christmas, and th second half knitting for me.  This year I wanted to finish all gifts by the end of November, but I still have socks and a hat to go,but no too bad. 

Blog:

1) Woolly Wormhead MKAL hat

2) Felted clogs

Finish:

3) Wurm hat for a gift.

4) Blue socks for  a gift.

5) You&I ravelry group Mystery KAL shawl.  I just have to keep up with the clues, and it's all downhill as the shawl is knitted bottom up.

Continue:

6) Babette crocheted blanket. I must not let this fall by the wayside!  I need to pick it up each week and do a little work on it. Not promising that I'll finish it though...

Start and finish:

7) Another ravelry KAL, this time from Boo-knits ravelry group, Boo Humbuh scarf. I actually started this yesterday, but may frog and reknit on smaller needles not sure yet.  

Start: 

8) restart, really. Kraka. I need to frog and reknit a smaller size. It's a bit gut-wrenching to do this.  It will be my Christmas project for me. 

So, eight goals,  Some small, some massive if I wnt them to be (Babette!) but a nice easy end to the year. I'm not even going to worry if nothing (except gifts) gets done, and I may also buy a kit or too as a treat!