skein

Procrastination

I made a last minute decision to go home for a fmaily visit last week.  My parents aren't getting any younger, and this month has seen both of them very poorly. 

So the knitting plans start. My cardigan, Storm Mountain isn't difficultb but the slipped stitch edging is a bit fiddly, so I thought I'd start a few easy projects.  Well that wasted a whole week of knitting!  I got sucked back into ravelry.  The initial mania was for cardigans. I've found half a dozen I like. I had to buy tem of course, so I could read the pattern thruogh for tircky bits!  I wasn't too worried, I had Thursday off work and thought I could cast on a few things. WRONG! By the evening (when I should be packing) I had nthing new on the go.  I pulled out a box which has Baby Cashmerino oddments and cast on a simple baby hat, and pulled out yarn for another Milo vest and baby cardigan.  In fact, I took (for a weekend):

*newborn hat

*newborn cardigan

*newborn vest

*hot water bottle cover 

and jut in case I ran out of knitting

*sock yarn

*sport weight yarn for a grown up cardigan.

And did hardly any knitting!

No train knitting

No knitting when family dropped by (just because I was too busy chatting)

Several frogged starts.

I'm nearly done with a newborn cardigan and that's it!  I didn't even manage any photos!

New stuff

As I mentioned yesterday,  I lsot a bit of time browsing ravelry ove rthe weekend!

Not for the first new WIP. It's a hot water bottle cover for MrC.  He's been hassling me for a few weeks now. he has a cover on his hot water bottle over at the boat and wants one for the one in the flat. He says it's too hot for his feet,  I don't know why he doesn't use hot tap water but still,m a knitting request is a nknitting request. 

I'm making it up as I go ,  I used Judy's Magic Cast On t create a closed cast on and increased every other row at each edge until it was wide enough.  When I reach the top I'll decrease nad knit a ribbed neck bit, I think.  I'm using some merino DK and striping so it's not too boring. Mindless enough to knit on when I'm dozing!

I've been thinking about cardigans, now that the weather's cooler.  In the Spring I had a bit of a cardigan clear out and need a few more!

Ravelry is great for stuff like this, but what a black hole!  I keep searches saved for various designers and for cardigans, so I only have to tweek the searches, but it still takes FOREVER to decide,  Then it's Pattern Pages, Projects and yarn used.  It helps a lot when designers have very detailed notes and lots of informative tags! 

Peasy and the woolly sportweight I'd chosen didn't work out. When I came to cat on I didn't fancy that yarn and colour with this pattern,

I've cast on another Heidi Kirrmeier pattern!  Storm Mountain,  It's another open cardigan, and looks a lot like Citamin D but in DK weight.  I'm even using the recommended yarn, Felted Tweed!  The colour's Paisley, not a favourite colour, but it's in stash and I have plenty.  

Now this onr starts off with the collar - but a very wide collar, which looks to me as if it extends to the start of the 'waterfall' front shaping.  The edges of the fronts are worked as you knit, with a slipped stitch edging which I'm findiing quite fiddly.  Not something which I can carry around.

I'm not sure that I'm over cardigans, just because I've cast one on!  Maybe I souod just cast on a few Christmassy things, like mitts, or cowls, or hats??

Shawl catch up

Shetland Wool Trader's MKAL is now blocked.  Unfortunately I thad to take it off the bed before it was completely dry last night, and Mr C todssed it onto a chest of drawers in a heap.  I didn't spot it until this morning!  I've loosely folded it and hopefully it'll be alright! 

Saturday I finished Quill, one of The Shawl Society's patterns.  I didn't take phtoos when I could, in daylight!  I've very pleased wtih this one. It's just a striped shawl with a very simple lace border.  A bit astonished that three of the four stashed colours of Felted Tweed went so well together!

This is my third finished TSS shawl.  I have Amulet hibernating. I'll make a decision by the end of the year :)  The other shawl is the one wiht a simple lace pattern using six colours, which I think I'll skip.  The final one is due out soon.  We've had yarn hints.  My immediate reaction was blah.  It's in bulky yarn and I don't have much in stash. i had a (very) quick look at the recommended yarn but I'm not paying £60 for three balls of chunky.  The only bit of chunky stash I can think of is some old Elann Seta Lana.  I'd been saving it for a garment, but after al of these years I might as well dig in and make a shawl, and it would be great for quick gifts, so I'll probably knti this shawl too. 

I've frogged the other shawl I had just started. It's Wavy Bias, very nice patter, but I fancy other things, and Christmas is approaching! The yarn's Louise Hardign Angora Pure, another one saved as garment stash, until I accidentally put some in the laundry (scooped up with laundry) and Mr C texted me to let me know that I'd put yarn in the wash and he had to spend half an hour untangling it. Luckily the rest of the ball has started to felt!  This yarn is so buttery soft that it'd make excellent scarves and cowls.

And let's just say that I've been in that ravelry blck hole agian, looking for new stuff to knit!  No shawls for a few weeks...  

Pisa Cowl

This was last month's Stitchnerd KAL, Red!  

I started off on Big Waffle, a two-ish skein shawl. I had to frog as I misplaced my second skein!  No double it's gone into a stash bag with the wrong stash!

This pattern is sooo easy. Just a rib which travels, without travelling stitches. I just moved my markers whe it came time to move the rib pattern, so I was always starting with the knit stitches.  

A super quick, easy knit and one more Christmas pressie done!

Shawls

My enthusiasm for shawl knitting is on the decrease!  

Last week I finished the Shetland Trader's MKAL, but it still needs blocking.

I need to get this blocked before MrC decides it's cold enought for the electric blanket (I do my blocking on the bed!).  At the moment it's just cold enough for Two Quilt Mode!

I've also made progress on Quill.  The stiped section is done and the lace section has began.  

This is Felted Tweed stash. I'm so pleased that I've managed to find three colours which tgo well together out of this stash. I only have four colours, and the fourth colour is actually a pack of yarn (Paisley) so I'm keeping that for a garment.  The lace section is going to be largely red with some green..  I may run out of red, but I have a second ball, which might be the same or might not. In artificial light they look very similar,  If they aren't the same and I run out, tough!

Saturday night I went to sleep dreaming about my next projects.  Mr C wants a hot water bottle cover, I want a cardigan and I need to knit a few baby vests,

Sunday I spent HOURS on ravelry. Hours. No knitting doen at all!  I really do need to think about how I made knitting decisions. Either choose the yarn first and then the pattern, or vice versa.  There are just too many combinations! 

In the end I've gone for Peasy, which has been in my library for years. I still don't know which yarn yet.  I have DK and Sport to choose from. It's a case of remembering where it all is! 

Last night I fell asleep dreaming of Christmas knitting - hats, cowls mits and baby vests...

 

Shetland MKAL shawl progress

Story of my life.  I didn't get as much knittnig done as I had planned.  I have a good excuse. It was time to get out the winter woollies and boots, and put away the summer sandals.  Today's rhe first day that I've worn boots and socks since the Spring!  Next job is to locate the accessories box and find some mitts and a few more cowls!

I have, however. managed to finish the never ending clue 2 of the MKAL and am now on clue 3, the knitted on border.

As I've mentioned, I'm knitting this in MC Navy and CC Silver.  I'm knitting all CC1. CC2 and CC3 in silver.  Whatever the directions, I'd decided to knit the lower border in Silver, as I like the idea of a lighter border.  What I hadn't thought about is that this MKAL wouold have TWO lower borders, and that Clue2 was just hte first!  So this has been knitted in Silver, with Navy accents, whereas it might look a bit more balanced in Navy, wtih Silver accents, ready for the final border. It would also mean that I'm not playing yarn chicken with  the Silver.  Never mind. It's a MKAL and if I were to knit it again I'd reverse the colours on Clue 2.

Alas I had to take a prgress photo in rather gloomy light, with the shawl rather scrunched up on the needles.  

The border is rather boring, just a two row repeat,

 I'm gritting my teeth and picking it up and working on it,  60% done!  

The next decision is on the plain top border (just a plain to to finish it off, I suppose).  I doubt that I'll have engouth Silver, so may have to use Navy....

 

Shawls....

My plans for last weekend were scuppered.

I idnd't finish Amulet, the second of The Shawl Society patterns.  Blame the gin!  I was so close to casting off and then worked a row of double decreases - one stitch out!  And in tinking bck I dropped so many stitches which ran right down. I've just frogged 30%, right down to the last section and put stitches back on the needle. But there;s so many stitches which have run and are unsecured...  It's in the naughty corner for a few weeks and then I'll decide if I ought to rescur it or frog the lot and forget about it.

And Big Waffle, my red DK shawl, is also frogged.  I have misplaced the second ball of yarn!  As I've had stash out recently it has most likely been put into rthe wrong pack, but I'm not looking!  Instead, I've cast on a cowl.  A dead easy pattern, Pisa by Stitchnerd. With the use of stitchmarkers so that I can zone out with the simple ribbing, instead of knitting a yarnover as a stitch, I can knit this one late at night, even with a few glasses of wine. 

Shetland Trader's MKAL. Well the fourth clue is out and I'm still working ont he second lcue!  I tried to take a photo this morning but it was so dark and the knitting was so scrunched up on the needles. 

I'm using navy as MC and silver as CC. I'm not using antoher two CCs, so it's going to be a two colour shawl.

Clue 1 - main triangle is knit in navy with contrasting silver stripes.

Clue 2 - bottom borders of the triangle as you pick up stitches and follow a simple lace pattern (involving double decreases, yikes!) and knit using the three CCs and MC.  As my CC is only silver, this part is mainly silver, with a few rows of MC thrown in.

Looking ahead to clue three it looks as if the sideways knitted border is in MC, but I think i may use the silver instead. I do like a lighter colour as a border.  I don't anticipate getting there this weekend, but it's something I need to think about. A look at ravelry projects might be in order!

And my toher dilemna is the latest shawl in TSS. The shawl looks lovely, but the  yarn choices and the way the pattern's written not so.  It uses two sets of six skein gradients.  The samples are using US Etsy stores (or if not Etsy, not readily available and not at all int he UK).  A smost of the sets I've come across are only 20g x5 and not 25g x6 I have a problem.  The other problem with yarn selection is that there may not be much leeway on  yardage, so even if I wanted to spend £££ on two gradient sets, I'd be fretting about running out..  I've thought about using mini skeins of non gradients (of which I have plenty!) but I'd still have the issue with knowing if I had enought to finish each section, even a row on long rows.  I'm not too happy with the way the colour changes are depicted in the pattern either - as a small square of colour at the beginning of each row!  I can see me trying to figure out if that's the lighter colour or the one above, whilst I sit there in the evening!  There's not a lot of explanation,  You relabel the mini skeins A-F (not in the order of the shading, because you need to have stripes) and I'm presuming that you work with colour A for a whilse (as you break this one off at one point) and then do some striping with colours B and C )again, it mentions breaking these off) and finally some striping with the remainign three skeins. But some colours look similar (on my phone) and I just printed out a page which might look similar in evening knitting.  Can I be bothered to work t his out or might I just make things up as I go?  The shawls look lovely, it's a super simple pattern but for the extra work I'd need to do to convert it to 'my' yarn choice. Not the greatest for stash diving I must say, but I'm wondering if it could look fabulous in a non gradient mini skein set. I bet it would, I shall see how others choose yarns and what their shawls look like before investing time in modifying the pattern to my liking. Ah, for a pattern where you can just stash dive and cast on!

Never mind, it's not as if I'm stuck for knitting! I've also somehow ordered lots of Skein Queen, and in there are a couple of jumper's worth of woolly yarn...  

October knitting and September knitting goals

My September knitting didn't go according to plan, I really thought that I'd be able fo finish at least three shawls.  Weeeelllll...

BLOG

1 Fastoche Mitts - done!

START AND FINISH

2 A TSS shawl - done, Asana (phew!)

 

3 Stichnerds shawl - miserable fasil. DK weight and only about 15% done.  It's Big Waffle.

START

4 Shawl #3 - done It's Quill, the fourth TSS pattern, Just on the needles, mind you.

5 Shawl #4 - done.  I restarted Amulet in two colours and am very pleased to report that it's over 80% done

And I also cast on two more shawls. 

Wavy Bias, just cast on! 

Shetland Trader MKAL. clue 1 completed, but I've hit a stitc count error on clue 2, so will have to investigate (or fudge)

So although I've done most of the goals, i feel a bit disappointed that I haven't completed more shawls.  But I now realsie that I'm really a two shawl WIPs person. Not six.  The other four just get left in the knitting bag!

OCTOBER GOALS

I thought I'd be knitting socks for Sockober, but it looks as if it's going to be a continuation of shawls!  Let's see if I can get them all off the needles!

FINISH

1 Amulet. I hope to get this done over the weekend.  

2 Big Waffle, This is a red KAL so again it'll be worked on over the next week. 

3 Shetland Trader's MKAL.  This will be more weekend knitting. I need to catch up. Clues two and three are out and the end is near!

4 Quill shawl (TSS).  Should be a quick knit when I get going,

So far, optimistic!

5 Wavy Bias. Not so sure about this as it's still a newborn!

START

6 The fifth shawl in TSS,  I'm waiting to see the actual pattern before stash diving as it might e a challenge to use stash. I have plenty to get on with!

7 As if I have any spare time!  It might be socks, or a shawl, I've seen some one skein shawls on ravelry which are looking good.....