skein

This week's list

Not such a great success last week" 

Let's start with what I managed

Block Land of Sweets Cowl

Start Knitvent #3 - the hat.  Fingerless Mitts are still a pipedream

Start some socks for MrC

And the four things I didn't accomplish:

Tale photos of FOs.  Time ran away with me and I'm still not sued to early sunset!  I need to get outside early afternoon!

Finish Knitvent #2 Tulle shawl. Abandoned. The sugar pink is just too irritating.  I've pulled out some other pink yarn,  which is marginally better.  I may forget about hte Tulle theme and jsut knit with a colour I like!

Start GAL2017.  I've bought some patterns. Just haven't had time to look in stash

Finish Stitchnerds hat.  Nope. Brought it into work last week in case I found time to knit, and left it here over the weekend. 

FOR THIS WEEK

Take photos of FOs (that's now four FOs - a cowl, a cardigan, some socks and a hat

Finish Stitchnerds hat (a very easy pattern)

Finish MrC's socks, which are DK and I'm past the foot of the firts one

Finish Knitvent #3 hat

AND Knitvent #3 mitts

Start Knitvent #4

Start a GAL2017 or restart the Knitvent #2 shawl

 

That's all! 

 

 

 

This week's to-do list

I slacked a bit last week,  On photos, again!  It was a bit gloomy on Saturday and I couldn't be nothered to go outside on Sunday.

But I did manage to do the rest:

Blocked Icefields Cardigan

Finished Knitvent #1, Land of Sweets cowl

Started Knitvent #2, Tukke shawl

Continued with 3 colour cowl

Knit a Stitchnerd hat - wwll, not finished, but started

I had a quiet weekend. MrC went to visit his son Billy, who lives in Berlin.  Of course I took advantage and pulled out the stash (MrC has no problem with my stash, but when ii dump it on his sofa, and leave it lying around the hallways he occasionally complains).  This meant I cast on several accessories.  But by Sunday evening I'd frogged the lot.  Not enough thought went into choosing yarn and project!  Perhaps I'll stick to what I plan to do this month!

Now one of MrC's tasks was to find a yarn shop, buy some Geman sock yarn in his colours.  I had a text this morning, mission complete!  I'll use any sock yarn for me, as long as thee's some nylon content and the yarn's machine washable, but for MrC I only use yarns like Opal or Socka,  as he's shrank a few pairs of his socks by putting them in the dryer, despite being told not to do this! 

or this week it's

Take photos of FOs!!

Block Land of Sweets Cowl

Finish Knitvent #2, Tulle shawl

Start Knitvent #3 (two patterns, and I think they'll be small accessories)

Finish the Stitchnerd's hat!

Start something from Giftalong which starts tomorrow

Start some socks for MrC (out of his purchases)

I'm putting the 3 Color cowl on hold as i don't much like the colours.  Still, quite a bit of knitting!

Knitvent #2

The second pattern is out.  It's a one skein shawl.  I havne't had a good look at the pattern yet, but it looks like it's a garter stitch shawl with a lace edging.  360m.  Stashdive!  I'm thinking of using some Skein Queen, either a wool blend or possibly a singles merino.  I need to see if it'll take variegated or if I ought to stick with a solid colour. 

meanwhile, in current knitting, I may abandon my 3 Color Cowl, The colour's aren't doing it for me.  It's also very long. But it's a simple pattern, and is very versatile, which I love. I'll put it on hold whilst I concentrate on Knitvent.

And onto Knitvent #1, the Land of Sweets cow;.  It's aimed at smaller amounts but more colours. Mine's going well. Just three more colour bands to complete, one plain and two with a ribbed texture.  Another very versatile pattern, Easy to adjust length, width and colour combination. 

I'm hoping for a birghter weekend, so I can get a few photos taken. During the week it's dark when I commute and I'm not prepared to cart knitting in with me an then go out onto Borough High street to get photos (it's too gloomy outside our office!)

I tried to get a quick photo of the cowl this morning, but I'm going to wait until it's done and I can get outside in daylight...

This week's to-do list

Last week I set myself a weekly to-do list.  Seven items.

I found my winter cowls and accessories

I washed my new socks

I washed my new hat

I entered the new projets on ravelry

I continued with  mt 2 colour cowl

I started the first Knitvent - a cowl

I FINISHED MY ICEFIELDS CARDIGAN!

OK, the knitting content of my goals could be a little or a lot of knitting I dind't do that much :) but still, it's knitting.

So let's do it again:

Block Icefields carigan

Take photos of socks

Take photos of hat

Finish Knitvent #1

Start Knitvent #2

Continue with 3 colour cowl );et's not even go down the finishing road)

Knit a Stichnerd hat (she has realeased two hats in her Chritmas e-book AND a free hat pattern)

 

The Indie KAL on ravelry starts next week, so I want to keep up with the stuff I'd planned to knit!

 

Knitvent 2017

And it begins!  A pattern per week,  starting yesterday.  Im hoping to use stash for these pattrns, though it's very tempting to buy New Yarn.

The pattern is Land of Sweets.  It's a cowl (though it comes up on ravelry as 'other') and is designed with yarn Advent Calendars in mind, using 24x8g mini skeins.

It's a single loop, but has 24 bands of colour and a height of 24 inches.   It's a very versatile pattern and could be knitted with just a few colours, even just one.

I'm thrilled to be able to stash dive for this project.  I have a bag of mini skeins!

I thought it would be just a case of dipping in and pulling out skeins, but of course when I pened the bag the first thing that popped up was a Knitting Goddess Colour Wheel in her new yarn, Sparkle.  These are 12x10g rather than 24/8g, so I've read the pattern and it's very very easy to adjust.  

1 I'll knit 12 bands and not 24 banks

2 I'll try to knit all of the skein rather than eight rows. I can pop in plain knitting rounds.  I think it'll mean an extra four rows or so. 

3 The pattern bands are symmetrical about the mid point, so I'm knocking six bands bottom and top. It works out well if I omit a three bank lace patter, two plain bands and one textured band each side.  As my banks will be a little bit longer my cowl sould be about 15 inches in height, still pretty long.

It's a very simple pattern. It's great for mini skeins or yarn oddments, just 8g per bank.  You can change the height by adding or removing bands (and most bands can be also altered by adding/removing rounds). You can adjust the width by adding or removing stitches.  The three patterend bands have repeats of 3. 6 and 10 and if you are fussy this means you can alter the stitch count by multiples of 30. I'd say you only need to concentrate on the mulitples of 10. give or take a few stitches, as you can ajdust the stitch count on the plain rounds.  A few stitches aren't going to make a lot of different to the width.

An excellent start to Knitvent!

This week's to-do list

Since I've abandoned my monthly list, I thought I'd make a weekly list.

1 find my winter woollies,  It was very cold this monring and could I find any cowls to wear?

2 wash the dk socks I've finsihed

3 wash the hat I've finished

4 add hat to ravelry

5 sort out Icefields crdigan, The sleeves are done!  But I decided to frog the garter bottom band., as it was a bit messy and I had yarn left over.  Not so simple. The vertical garter panels are not plain garter, but have increases and decreases at the edges. The stitches ran and ran.  I've now nearly tinked back.  It's bloody awful trying to reknit eight stitches and keep the rest on the needles!  This will be reserved for the weekend.

6 continue with the 3 Color cowl, I'm about 20% done

7 start Knitvent 2017 pattern '1, due to be released on Thursday

Seven things for seven days.  Should be do-able?

Stash

How does your stash make you feel?  Happy? Frustrated? Anxious?

 

Last Rhrusday morning mine mine made me feel grumpy.

MrC was over at the boat and I'd fallen asleep with my phone on the pillow, centre headboard. Now our bed is an old Ikea loft bed - one of those space conserving pieces of furniture, liek a top bunk with room for a whole extra room underneath.  Wen we moved MrC sawed down the legs, except he left them longer than the usual bed height, to accommodate my stash :)  Underbed storage is high enough for a box plus a vacuum pack on top.   It's very crowded under there!

So, Thrusday morning I'm groggy with sleep and I hear my phone drop on the floor. Ten minutes before the alarm goes off. I have to get up, start pulling boxes and packs from under the bed, and then crawl right under to hunt for the phone, Not only too much exertion for 5.50am but also rather dusty.  I couldn't find it. I could hear the alarm but couldn't see the phone light up,  Turns out it had fallen off the SIDE of the bed over on MrC's side.  

Anyway, it made me think about getting out some stash and reminding myself what was where (especially as I'd messed it all uppulling it all out).  So I spent the weekend gently rummaging through some stash,  One box or pack at a time as there's not much room around my knitting chair to scatter the contents and check them out again.

Although I'm very happy with my stash I've lapsed on some of my sort-of New Year Resolutions:

• I've stopped adding new stash to ravelry
• I'm still winding balls and not attaching the labels
• I've been buying stash 'just because' rather than for planned projects
• I've not been using up oddballs
• I've not been using up old stash

If I'm not careful I'll be a candidate for Hoarders!

 

So I'm going to TRY not to buy a lot of yarn for the rest of the year. Not that drastic, it's just for two months, MrC usually buys me sock yarn for Christmas (suspiciously always in his colours...)  and I'm in a few yarn clubs.  We'll see.

 

I'm thining that for November I may just stick with accessories (and finish my cardigan off of course).  Knitvent is starting, Stitchnerds had a Chri9stmas ebook and it's the Indi Designers KAL on ravelry,  I've noticed t hat the balance of my stash has changed;  it's more single skeins of 4ply and less packs these days (I think) so this suits the accessories ida.   I've also found my two vacuum packs of dk/worsted oddballs,  I really thought I'd have knitted this up during the year!  Well these are now out in plain sight and I'm hoping that this will encourage me to knit it up. 

Wish me luck.  When confronted by a huge bag of stash I tend to become Ms Indecisive and can never marry up yarn and projects.  What a dilemna!