skein

Icefields cardigan

I'm still on the yoke, and have worked a few more inches since I took this photo.  The colour isn't quite right - taken early morning before I went to work. curtains still closed (not that there was enough daylight at that time of morning!)

I've also wound up yarn to start two cowls.  The two I'm thinking of starting are Volkig by Martine Behm, a Knitty pattern.  It looks very easy, apart from teh casting on of 200 sts and joining without twisting!  I've earmarked Skein Queen's Ravish for this project.  It's gorgeous and soft and will make an excellent cowl.

 

The second cowl is by Joji Locatelli, the Bobble cowl.  It's a sideways knit cowl, with short rows (in garter stitch) and bobbles.  I'm thinking of Easyknits Splendour, another luscious yarn great for cowls.

I don't usually blog about personal stuff, but the blogging (and knitting) might be a little sporadic over the near future. My brother is very seriously ill, which has devastate the whole family. I've never been able to knit in a crisis (oh, how I wish I cuold!!), so I may just end up with no knitting and lots of hand wound skeins...  

 

And the knitting drought continues

Well, sort of.  Wednesday evening I frogged my Little Guys Hitchhiker. A combination of not loving the colour combinations and weighing the yarn - I seem to have misplaced about half a dozen little balls,  Whilst on a frogging run I frogged my other shawl project, Beautiful Cobweb, in a sparkle sock blank.

Last week was the start of Autumn for us.  Over the summer MrC has breakfast on the deck when he's over at the boat, but on Thursday he decided that it's too cool early morning.  Friday I wore my winter coat for the first time, and earlier on I wore a woolly cardigan for the first time.  It was the only one out, and has been lying around all summer aneither in the office or at home.  AND DISCOVERED A FEW MOTH HOLES!!!

Acutally this hadn't come as a surprise. We've spotted moths occasionally and MrC had a suit full of mothholes last year. My yarn is packed and I never leave skeins out. Those pesky buggers don't care that the yarn is out in light, they just burrow into the cnetre to lay their eggs. My cardigans are also stored in bags, and if left out are not left untouched, I'm forever picking them up and wearing them, moving them around. But my Vitamin D was left all summer.  I'm not sure if the moths were form home or the office.  At this time of year I swap over summer/winter clothes and take the opportunity to spray cupboards and drawers with moth killer.   I've found some moth balls which apparantly kill moths, larvaae and egs, but I've not tested them out yet, except to smell them.  They have a very strong soapy smell, not sure I want to smell like that, but they might be great for the sock drawer.

Anyway, as Vitamin D is my favourite cardigan I want to knit another one. So I pulled out some stash over the weekend. I'm thining of using some Skein Queen 4ply in Vintage Red. Whilst in that bag (of SQ) I also pulle dout some DK weight yarn, Tweedino, in Denim Blue. 

Then onto ravelry.  The designer of Vitamin D has a new pattern out, Icefields. Worsted weight (and as I'm a loose knitter, that means DK to me) and antoher open design.  You'd think that i'd buy it immediately and cast on. No. Half a day spent on ravelry looking at other cardigan designs, projects, notes and yarns used.  Ultimately though, I've cast this on.  It's a top down seamless cardgian, wtih raglan shaping. It's a bit awkward at first, you need to concentrate as there's panels of garter stitch between the fronts, sleeves and back, and three lots of short rows for the collar, back and fronts.  But all that needs is a little concentration and counting.  I managed to do this whilst MrC watched the latest BBC Skandivavian drama on Saturday night. I'm still on the raglan shaping but it's now easy knitting, no concentration required.  Antoher Good Thing is that the first two short row shaping occurs in garter stitch sections, so no picking up that wrap!  I haven't read ahed, but the sleeves are worked flat instead of in the round.  That won't happen...

So one thing on the needles.  I'm off shawls and on to garments!

Knitting catch up (of sorts)

Oops.  Blogging seems to have taken a back seat this month.  I keep running out of time!  And haven't done much knitting. 

Right, stash.  My stash isnt' very organised. I have boxes, which are 'static' and I'm aware (vaguely) of what's in them.  Similarly with the bins of stash. One bin is titghtly packed wiht just the cottons and summery blends. But the vacuum packs have been multiplying of their own accord.  I'm forever chopping and changing their contents and location and have not been great at keeping an up to date list.  It's frustrating having to open them up to check what's in there and then having to reseal them,  It's not helped that I've not been that careful about acquisition this year!  Lots of single skeins added to the stash. 

So a few weekends ago I thought I'd do a little stash diving, now that i'ts Autumn and thoughts are turning towards woolly things again.  The first pack of yarn I pulled out was a small stash of Easy Knits Big Boy and Little Guys which has been stashed for years.  I've held onto the Little Guys thinkding that I'd use them for colourwork, But you know what? It's not going to happy any tine soon and I might as well look on ravelry for a stashbutsting pattern.

 

Found one, teh Scrappy shawl, a few ravelry download. It's just a bias knit shawl, casting on a few stitches, and casting off whenenver you fell like it.  

Well I cast on, And have abandoned.  Two main hiccups.

1) i wanted it to look scrappy so was using smaller lengths of yarn, knotting them together. The novelty of stop/star and knot soon wore off,

2) I'm incapable of random colour selection. However hard I tried, I've ended up with a very obvious striped shawl.

 

I've restarted but am now using the original Hitchhiker pattern, which has the same bias construction with the added excitement of a pointy edge.  This time I've separated the colours so I'm ony using the not so bright colours. Hopefully there's another Hitchhiker with red and oragne shades in my future!

 

I've now found Knitting Goddess mini skein stash. Rather a lot more than Little Guys as I used to be a member of the Mini Skein club, and have two or three colour wheel sets to boot.  These have all been hunted down and have their own little vacuum pack!  I'm thinking os using these as whole skeins and only knotting them when I'm changing skeins.  I'd like to knit a big shawl, random colour changes (ha!!) in garter stitch.

And maybe I should rein in the single skein stash acquisition till the end of the year!

September knitting goals (and current knitting)

I haven't bothered with kntiting goals for a few months and think I might need a bit more structur in my knitting - let's see if this works!

I'm starting to think about Autumn and have put away all of the cottons and summery coloured yarns. Keeping an eye on shawls. scarves, garments and cowls.  Lots of things to think about!

BLOG

1 that sleeveless Big Wave top I knitted in the summer, before deciding that I didn't like the colour!

2 Hitchhiker Beyond.  Yes, it's finished. Washed with just a few odd ends to darn in

CONTINUE

3 Beautiful Cobweb shawl by Stitchnerd.  I've had this pattern for ages.  It's a simple garter stitch shawl with an easy lace border. This yarn is a sparkly sock blank.  It's the yarn I used in one of te unseccessful Hitchhiker Beyond attemps (because I hadn't weighed the yarn and started section 2 too late).  This sock blank is just bands of colour, so I decided to go with a top down shawl rather than a sideways knit shawl (which might look a lot like the blank!).  Several dropped stitches, a ngithmare in garter stitch even with that handy double hooked thing, and you know what? I just hooked the stitches up in stocking stitch.reverse stocking stitch. I don't think it's tat obvious, makes for a bit of detail!

 

4 plain socks, Very slow going, but these are for Christmas!

START

5 a GARMENT! I'm not quite ready to dip into deep winter woolly knitting, so it's going to be a jumper and 4ply - I want to knit Confetti, a striped very eA-line jumper.  I spent the weekend stash diving. The yardage needed is a bit frstrating. I need just over two skeisn of the CC, and my speckled (which would look great) are mainly single skeins.  I'm toying with Wollmeise as the MS, and am now dithering over the CC. I've knitted a little swatch, and teh pale blue/white speckled looks a bit dull.  I may just go with it and hope it works out.  Otherwise opt for justr one skein of CC and knit less increases for the A line shape. 

6 a cowl. Or maybe a cowlette (this seems to be the word for cowls which start off as shawls, not sure I like it)

 

7 Optional - something small but veering between a baby cardigan and a hat.

Drat.  There's also that Fade obsession going on over on ravelry. I have the yarn...