skein

Quick Sand II

I've cast on another cardigan!  Not that summer seems imminent. 

This year I'm still very happy with open cardigans, they're so easy to wear.  I've never found open, buttoned cardigans to hang properly, and usually will weat them buttoned up. 

 

I fully intended starting a lighter weight cardigan, Chance of Showers, but on Sunday the first bag I pulled out was some oooolllllldddd Summer Tweed, so I've gone for another Quick Sand. 

I only have six skeins, which should be enough, but I'm having doubts!  One skein down, and I have eight increasing yoke rounds to go. The sleeves are 3/4 and I'm hoping that each will take a skein, so I can see how far four skeins go on the body.  I can always knit half sleeves. I'm thinking of wearting this over dresses, so it won't be awful if it's a little shorter. 

Quick Sand is knitted with the edge stitch as a garter stitch. you can leave as is, or pick up and knit one row and cast off, to 'finish' it.  I found that this lone garter stitch at the edge down not make a neat pick up and knit, so I started this one off with just stocking stitch, intending to do the optional border. But as I'm worried about yardage, I've cahnged my mind, and after an inch have changed to a garter edge stitch. I hope it doesn't look too odd!  The optional border is more decorative than practical, the fronts still roll (but I like it for this style!)

I also started out with 4mm needles, as I'm really slack with this yarn :)  Again, I've changed my mind and am now using a 4.5mm needle, I think it will stretch out the yardage.  My stitch count on the smaller needle was slightly more than the pattern but the row count was not enough.  On the larger needle it's looking a bit more loose (not a bad thing) and I've gone down to a smaller size - less yardage!  I like this cardigan with a tighter shoulder and yoke so that it sits on t he shoulder better. I imagine the Summer Tweed will stretch out a bit with wear too. 

As I don't keep up with Rowan too well, I was a bit perplexed by teh ravelry yardage for this yar. There's a note saying that the yarn yardage has changed. Not sure at all what that's about as the yarn seems to be the same, and is the same weight, but has more length?  Is the new Summer Tweed a bit thinner, then?  The skeins are a little messy and fall apart, so maybe now it's repackaged it will behave better.  

Needless to say the Felted Tweed jumper is hibernating this week...

Still plugging away on the striped jumper

Thursday evenign I finished the first sleeve.  As I was nearign the end I kept trying it on (by poking my arm in the sleeve, rathter rthan actually putting the whole jumper on).  It felt right. I knitted the ribbing and tried the whole jumper on, and ... it was
too short!

 

Bevenr mind, I started on the second sleeve and added a few more stripes.  It only took a day to knit the whole sleeve (with weekend chores and cooking and pottering taking up some time).  

When I knit sleeves in the round I use Mgic Loop, and have the sleeve seam, wher I'm decreasing, in the middle of a needle, rather than at the end, makes it a bit neater.  I didn't do this with sleeve #1 and that seam is so scrappy!  It's compounded by the carrying and changing yarns for the stripes.  So I'm tempted to reknit the whole thing. I've got to frog a little, maight even just frog half of the sleeve and neaten up that sleeve seam. Meanwhile Ive knitted the neckband,sl tnere's only this sleeve decision to mke before it's finished. I'm sitting on it.  

It always puzzles me why, when knitting a seamless garment which you can try on for length, the neckbank isn't finished beforehand.  it pulls up the garment so that things are a little more accurate. I know my personal sleeve length, but it all depends on how snug the sleeve is. If it's a loose garment I need shorter sleeves. If it's very fitted around the shoulders I need longer sleeves.

 

Sunday I thought I might cast on something else.  I'm so pig sick of Felted Tweed and Stripes!  I'm glad that I won't be wearing this until the Autumn, gives me time to put it away ad reacquaint myself with it in a few month,

So I had a quick look at some nearby stash and have started a cowl which will be a quick knit in some lovely red DK.  I'm even thinking of knitting another Quick Sand in... Summer Tweed!  I absolutely hate knitting with this, but love the result. I'm a very loose knitter, just can't knit to tension, so I'll start off knitting a few sizes down. I don't mind a small shoulder/upper back, and if I need to up the sizing I can add more at bust level (even though I like this design a bit frontless!)

 

I want to knit summery things!

But (so far) I'm sticking with After the Rain.  It's extremely difficult to stay motivated on a Felted Tweed jumper when I fancy knitting a summer cardigan in summer colours!  Some days are harder than others - when the sun shines!  

At the weekend I finished the body and started the sleeve. I don't have much knitting time in the evenings, so it's slow progress, but I'm about halfway down the first sleeve.  I'm having to put the unused ball inside the sleeve so I don't knit in the non-working yarn.

 

At least there won't be much finishing.  

I'm sort of thinking of knitting Chance of Showers by Heidi Kirrmaier.  I haven't investidgated too much (as this would be a bit toooo tempting). 

Decisions.  Do I stick with this and the second sock over the next week or cast on a cardigan and possibly a summer shawl?  Obviously two WIPs is not enough to keep me on track...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lightwaves shawl

FINALLY managed to take photos of the shawl!  I have to wait unti lafter 6pm (at the moment) until the sun disappears over the building, otherwise it washes out the colour.  Yesterday I ahd to wait until five, as MrC wanted to follow his football team and refused to pop outside in case th other side scored a goal. It happened once, many years ago in an England/Germany match, which went into extra time and then a penalty shoot-out. We were in a pub and let's say he was out of the room when England missed a penalty and Germany won.

This is a small, shallow crescent shaped shawl.  As I was using 4ply I went for the larger size,   The yarn's all Wollmeise. Always pleased to use some older stash.

The pattern was origianally designed for Kauni, and that's why I bought it, but kept putting off knitting when I saw the waves and ridges and worried if I might not manage a full wave in one colour.  (In fact, unless you go large I reckon you'd easily have plenty).  Then I saw one with contrasting ridges and decided to give it a go.  

I alternated colours for the waves, so the colours also line up.  This would be a great stashbuster for smaller balls of yarn. You could kmit each wave a different colour and it would look fabulous. 

Stash

 

Let's talk about stash!  How do you arrange and store your stash?

I try to keep mine organised, I don't have the room to spread it about!

I've decluttered quite a bit, and what i'm left with is stored in boxes, vacuum . compressed storage bags (brilliant) and big toy bins, which collapse flat when not in use (ha!)

I have five boxes stacked beside the wardrobe 

    Laceweight

    Sock yarn (with nylon)

    Sock yarn (without nylon)

    4ply luxury suitable for next to skin cowls and small shawls

    Lorna's Laces and sock yarn and some other sock yarns which won't fit in the other sock boxes

Our bed is an IKEA bed which was originally one of their high beds, like a top bunk. When we moved MrC had the forethought to saw off the legs leaving the bed quite high, so we had storage space under the bed.  I can get boxes and put vacuum packs on top. In fact, over the weekend I had to reach some stuff in the centre, and crawled under the bed!

There are boxes under the bed (larger boxes!) 

    Yarns for baby knitting (tends to be washable and oddballs in child colours)

    Yarns for garments in the other boxes,  I think of these as trans-seasonal, dk or sport weight, and maybe not a lot of yarn, suitable for shorter sleeves!

Then there's the oddball dk, worsted and aran woolly balls. I keep these in three big vacuum storage bags tucked under the bed. If you've never bought these bags they are great for reducing bulk (and keep moths away).   I also have vacuum bags (but smaller!) for stuff like Wollmeise, Koigu, and half a dozen Indie UK dyers.  Luscious stuff, and I like to keep them all together! I sem to have enough Skein Queen and Countess Ablaze to warrant two bags - for 4ply and for Dk and aran!

The bins are for packs of yarn - or enough for garmetns.  I have two Winter yarn bins (which I won't touch till the end of the summer, always a surprise!) and two Summer yarn bins.  Just getting the summer yarn out (and it's diminished quite a bit) made me want to throw my current WIP, a Felted Tweed jumper, into the corner and start a summery cardigan. I have rsisted, but only becasue I don't have time to look on ravelry!  

So that's my stash.  Nine boxes, four bins, three XL vacuum packs amd a dozen M and L vacuum packs.  Oh, and a big suitcase on top of the wardrobe (which was last looked at a few years ago when I asked MrC to take it outside and open it up in case of moths!  There's the small work sash too....

I often wonder what it would be like to have a small stash, and the excitement ofhaving to order yarn for a new project!

And as this is just a rambling post with no piccies, here's one of a box of my shawls, which I aired on Saturday!

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Socks, baby hat and... a shawl!

Some progress, at last!

I spent Sunday re-knitting the tinked part of Lightwaves.  It's FINISHED and been blocked (more like a wash and laid out flat, rather than pinned out).  Just the ends to darn in nowm.

I finished my dk striped socks

The baby hat (a good tmeplate for using up scraps.

This leaves just a few things on the needles - the striped jumper and a pair of stirped socks. I've turned the  heel on sock #1 and will pick up the jumper this week.,  I need to get reacquainted with the pattern and where I am!

I have resisted ravelry!  That's probably why I've managed some knitting!