skein

Snadshrot cardigan

Still a work in progress.  I realised last night that I haven't taken one photo of this WIP and tried to take one this morning, but the gloomy morning light meant that the photos looked terrible. 

I've finished the body and am now on the first sleeve,  

The knitting is so much easier on the sleeve - because I' used an 80cm Addi for the body. Turns out that I don't have longer Addis and wanted to use them for this yarn as the bamboo tape was catching on the longer, wooden needles. I had to be so careful picking up the knitting!  For the sleeves I've gone with a longer plastic ciircular. I didn't like these on the body, thought that they were a bit too pointed but I've changed my mind. Maybe I'm more used to knitting with tape now.

The sleeves are only 10" so I may well get these done over the weekend. I'm still aiming to finish this in July! It's another frontless design, so only have a border to do.  Fingers crossed!

Next week is the start of ravellenics so I want to have a little stash rummage. It's only for two weeks, so I won't be knitting masses of stuff,  I want to find my dk/aran oddball stash. I'm anticiapting that this small stash rummage might take longer than I think. One bag or box leads to another... I don't know how I'd cope with a mega stash!

 

Amulet Shawl

Amulet is the second of six shawls from TSS (The Shawl Society),  The next one's due around the 4th of August, so I'd better get a move on! 

This one has two size options, medium and large, and has beads or not. I've gone for eth medium, which uses 585m of 4 ply yarn. There are four sections, and you can use two altenating colours.  I'm going for one colour and beads. 

The yarns is Canisp from Ripples Crafts, a soft merino, silk and cashmere blend. It's 20% discounted whilst stocks last, am very tempted to buy more, it's great for next to skin wear, and I do like to wear shawls wrapped around my neck (if they're not too big!)

I completely messed up the first row of the second section, and put it into hibernation for a few days whilst I thought about frogging and reknitting or trying to reknit a partial area.  In the end I thought 'sod it' and left my horror attempt at picking up dropped stitches alone. The stitch stretched out so much that I thought I'd pick up a stitch either side of the dropped stitch, and decrease on the next section, but it's very obvious.  It will still be obvious after blocking, but this is for me, and it won't be worn stretched out for all to see!  I keep forgetting to increase in the middle of rs rows too! Urgghh. i need to go back to knitting school or get more sleep!

Here's the shawl at 40% (loovvveee this percentage system!) and it now stands at 45%.  I doubt that I'll finish it in July, but I'm hoping to get to 75%.

 

I'm having a mini break for the week day evenings and will be working on my Sandshore cardigan. I measured the body yesterday and I have 6" of body, two short sleeves and border to go in Rowan Bamboo Tape, possibly a Finish in July? 

Talisman Shawl TSS

The first shawl in TSS is done and dusted.

It's Talisman, and my knitting journey has been long and a bit tedious. I started with some Skein Queen peach gradient.  Messed up on the cast off and frogged. Rather than reknit the same pattern in the same yarn I went for a Skein Queen sock blank, with stronger colours.  

July knitting goals revised

Last week I decided to drop a few of my July goals. This is because I've been drawn into ravellenics again!  So I'm trying to spend what little time is left in July finishing stuff.  

The baby vest is OUT. 

The Stitchnerd cowl is OUT.

Instead, I'll be trying to finish my second shawl in TSS, Amulet. I've cast on, and am about 1/3 done. I've hit a snnag in starting the second seciton, there's been some dropped and run stitches in the garter stitch section, which have stretched out a lot in picking up, and I've also managed to increase the stirch count on one side by at least six. I'ts going into the naughty corner until the weekend. I'll stick with easy knitting in the weekday evenings. 

So, I have a sock and my Sandshore cardigan to work on. It would be great to finish the cardigan soon, whilst we have warm weather (though today's horribly hot for this knitter!

Sandshore - I have two shortish sleeves, and six inches of body, and edgeing. 

Socks  these are Knitting Goddess UK's scrapballs.  I won't use the whole ball for one pair of socks, but hey, I have two balls and none will match, so there might b enough for three pairs of socks!  I'm knitting about five sts in bother colours at the colour change, and weaving in the remaining ends as I go. 

 

Talisman Shawl

My weekend knitting did not go as planned!  I thought that I'd have a brak from Talisman, and spend Saturday working on my cardigan, Sunday casting on a cowl or a baby vest (or both).  In the end I carried on with Talisman, couldn't put it down, as I watchd the colours emerge.  I'd wound the sock blank into a ball, as I'd wanted to start with the other end, and that was just as much fun, wondering when the ball would change colour. This, and generally house chores, kept me away from my crdigan and new WIPs.  AND I FINISHED IT!

Sp pleased that it went alright this time. I'm having a breather from shawl knitting this week, will just work on the cardigan and the new WIPs. I've decided to knit a Bambino Milo vest, the same as the free pattern but worked in 4ply and sized from a Preemie (2 sizes) up to a one year old.  I've even found some Dream in Colour Smooshy, as this is going to a teenage mother who probably hasn't a clue about hand washing or even general clothes care, think she still lives at home but has a prety unsupportive mother I hear. My niece is gathering together a baby package and these knits I've been doing will go with her stuff.  I've also just found out that an ex colleague is having baby #2 and it's due at the end of December,  I do love a winter newborn!

Striped socks

Some plain self striping socks. I can't tell you how long these have taken!  I left them in a yarn bowl by my chair (so that they weren't portable) and picked them up when I was too tired to knit on anything even vaguely patterned, except that meant that I kept dropping stitches and having to tink back just before bed.   I also found that loads of time I didn't wrap the yarn around the stitch, so on the next row I'd have a stitch whic was sitting wrongly on the needle, and the yarn behind it.  I was puzzled as to why this was happening (this doesn't happen with any other knitting) and see that my sock knitting has evolved, without me realising!  I used to poke that right needle with my left index finger as I pulled it out of the knitted stitch. Now I don't do that, I hold only the left needle with that finger. I presume it's because I often had a little cut on that finger from the sharp needle points, and stopped doing it. What used to feel awkward (not poking the needle) now seems natural!  carefully!

 

The yarn is Knitting Goddess UK's March Club yarn, in British Wool and Nylon. I've already found one of the Scrap balls and intend to cast on another sock soon. I've got to decide what to do about the joins though. Thinking I may do what I sometimes do with cottons and linen yarns - knit about four or five stitches wiht both yarns and on subsequent rows weave in the ends. I cannot imagine darning in a million ends after it's finished.  I may do magic knot thingies on the leg of the sock, which I like to be a bit loose, and knit in the ends on the foot. 

Tasliman shawl 33%

I feel as if I've been knitting this shawl FOREVER. 

I've now reached 33%.  The yarn is Skein Queen's Colour Scrolls, a sock blank named Rainbow Road.  The colours aren't dyed proportionately, but are in sequence.  I'm starting at the violet end moving down to a red border. 

These colours, taken yesterday, are more true

than these, which show my progress at 33%.  Violet, a little bit of indigo, blue and starting the green.  As I'm only a third through, I'm hoping that the red,orange and yellow are looong lengths! I must weigh the yarn tonight, don't want to have to play yarn chicken!  The shawl will be dead easy to make smaller, should I think that I'm running out of yarn, as long as I keep an eie on what's left.

I've been looking at my knitting goals this month.  I have three quick things - blog, and start a second shawl and some socks - which I will concentrate on later on this month, but I also want to finish this shawl and my cardigan, and start and finsih a cowl and a baby vest, so I thin I may take a breather from this shawl over the weekend and do some cardigan knitting and at lleast cast on the baby vest and the cowl.  I'm tempted to knit another Milo vest, love the way it's constructed and knitted.  We shall see.  I like casting on something new on Sundays, when MrC pops over to his shed boat and I can stash dive and spread it all out on his sofa!

Talisman shawl

So excited on Saturday to start the picot cast off of this shawl, ready for the release on Tuesday of the new TSS shawl pattern, Amulet.

I spent the morning hunting down beads and reacquainting myself with types of beaded picot cast off.  

Then the cast off (beadless, in the end).  Slow and painful. I'd chosen to cast off using k2togtbl, which I have to be very careful with. Many a time I've missed a stitch and watched the cast off unzip. As usual, this happened several times and I had to repair the dropped stitches (which like hanging around in pairs!) and wasn't very happy with the stretched out knitted fabric in these places.

Here's the result

 

Forgged!  Even that took forever, the picots did not behave well with frogging.

I love the Peach gradient, but thought I'd try either a mildly variegated or a stronger gradient, so I went stash diving on Sunday. Not for Shawl #2 as I'd anticipated, but for shawl #1 again.

It's cast on, and 15% done.  I went with a sock blank. I'd wasted so much time that I didn't want to waste more winding up skeins.

Still Skein Queen, this time a Sock Scroll.  

I'm just starting the second colour,

  9d u 4

Wish me luck this time!  I'm going to wait until the weekend to think of yarn for the second shawl, It needs more yardage, about 600 yards I think. So I'll need either two skeins or two colours, but I'm not sure I want a two colour shawl as shown, with wide bands of colour.  I may have narrower stripes, or go for two skeins which don't have much contrast, maybe even one variegated with matching solid.  I would love to read the thread, but it's soooo chatty that I'd spend more time rading than knitting. Might just look at the photos instead.  

 

 

Entrechat

What an ideal summer cardigan! A sleeveless, one button cardigan. 

It's knitting in one piece, with a little ruffle on the back bottom border, looks cute and solves any issues one may have with casting off too tightly.

Knitted in Stylecraft's Malabar DK weight, a cotton/silk machine washable (and it can be tumble dried, I think) blend. At first I wasn't that keen on this weight (love the aran weight) but it's grown on me, after leaving it be for a few weeks.  I haven't washed it yet, this is straight off the needles!. 

A back view of the ruffle (but not very centred, sorry!)

I may even knit a few more of these. Fast, easy and I reckon that they will last thorugh a few growth spurts as it's short and sleeveless.