skein

january knitting

Oops.  2018 doesn't seem to have started well, as regards knitting.    NO FINISHED OBJECTS! Not even close!

I have one (dk) sock finished, I have the upper body and nearly two sleeves finished of Storm Mountain cardgian.

The two weeks spent selecting a ahawl, stashdiving, knitting and frogging didn't help.  Nor did my sore index finger, sore exactly on the spot where I tension the yarn.

Storm Mountain is nowhere near finsihed.  The pattern is top down, with the sleeves knitted first, flat. This is to preserve tension between the body and the sleeves.  Apparantly it's easier if yf you knit the sleeves first, adn that's what I'm doing, but knitting them in the round.  I'm not that happy with the yarn. I chos a Sportweight yarn rather than a dk, but this yarn is more like a heavy 4ply, and the fabic is a bit gappy.  I'm hoping the yarn blooms a bit.  Otherwise I'm going to end up with a different cardigan!

No plans for February.  I'm going to continue to work on the cardigan, finish the socks, probably cast on a shawl and maybe a little tunic dress for my youngest great niece, Betsy.  One thing I'm not doing this year is ravellenics.  I've not had time to plan and seriously doubt that I'd be able to organise myself to post projects and pictures up on ravelry!  I still have stuff from December!!

Shawl failure

Last week I worked on my Feile shawl. I was all set to blog about my progreess on this last Friday, but  ran out of time.  Or it might be that I was a little worried about rnning out of yarn...

Sautrday I looked at my every dwindling ball of MC.  Nothing to do with pattern yardagem more to do with me getting the skein tangled up and leaving a good bit to wind up later, Except I seem to have thrown away the tangled bit.  I don't have much in this shade, so it's off the needles, not in a good way :(  I can't believe that I threw it away!

I didn't have time to stash dive so I've gone with the Knitting Goddss Club yarn. Not really my shade, it's a gradient set of mini skeins. I've nearly decided on a free pattern, No Fuss, Shade Loveing shawl.  It's a top down triangular shawl, mainly plain stocking stitch with a few rows of garter, and every so often a row of eyelets.  If I do knit this pattern I'll NOT knit it in as a gradient but alternate the dark/light cskeins, so it's obviously striped. 

I feel a bit of startitis creeing in.  As well as this shawl I want to restart my shawl failure, and there's Purlbreak and Free your Fade (should I decide on a large shawl). 

I'm still intending to sort out my queue, but I suppose therr's no rush with this, I have all year.   It's not helping that I've stated taking an interest in Hot Right Now patterns.  Blimey, need to start knitting and do less browsing!

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2018 shawls

I'm still thinking about knitting resolutions.  Not so much resolutions as what I think I'd like to knit this year.

Last year was the yar of Fades, huge shawls and speckled yarns.  I was trempted by a huge Gade shawl, but more for the kniting than the wearing.  A few years ago I took a long hard look at the shawls I'd knitted over the years and not given away.

Shawl I never wear:

• laceweight lace shawls
• 4 ply larger shawls (not single skein)
• rectangular shawls

Shawls I occasionally wear:

• dk or thicker yarn weight shawls in larger sizes (not huge!) which I wear draped over my shoulders on colder days. usually triangular.
• 4ply lace shawls

Shawls I wear a lot:

• 4 ply one skeiners with possible just an edging in garter stitch

I'm not averse to larger shawls if they're in a nice fibre, such as cashmere and can be wrapped around my neck on very cold days. 

I'm still trying to sort out my queue for 2018.  At this moment I'm only adding pattens which are already in my library, and as far as shawls go, there's about three or four in the queue, but another 65 not knitted!  Now, do I stick with the patterns I own or go browsing on ravelry for new patterns, or patterns by new to me designers?   I'm thinking of stripes, mini-skeins. gradients, more one-skein patterns and possibly a big shawl.  Looking on ravelry I do believe that I knitted NO shawls in 2017, must do better this year!

I love this new ravelry challenge tab, you can specify the number of projects you want to knit for 2018 and include queued items as long as there's a deadline entered.  This had to help with the shawl knitting, right?  

 

Current knitting

Time for a knitting catch up.

Over the Christmas/New Year I knitted some mitts, which are still sitting by my knitting chair needing ends darned in.  I still haven't blocked Clara's Cape, either, bviously not in a finishing mode!   I'd also used some dk sock leftovers to start a pair of socks for my brother.  Managed to knit two whole socks up to the start of the toe decreases, and finished them off lasst night. They need a washing as the knitting's very erratcic (seems that knitting and alcohol are not compatible!).

I also cast on Storm Mountain cardigan, again. I'd tried this earlier on in 2017 and gave up, as the SS£ (slipped stitch edging) was far too fiddly for me.  You slip the edge stitch but increase as well, and then knit the new stitch and edge stitch together in the next row. I kept muddling up the instructions.  This time I'm doing a simple 1x1 ribbing, slipping the end sts on the WS rows.

I'm using a Sport weight yarn ainstead of a dk, so that I can get tension (I hope!).

Mindless knitting ...

In the New Year I cast on a new project. Feile. A sideways knitted scarf, increasing so thsat it forms an asymmetrical triangle. 

And now for my ravelry queue.  This might be a work in progress. I'm only adding patterns from my library which I've not knitted yet.  I'm hoping to knit at least half of these, but I'll still have plain socks, repeat patterms amd NEW patterns throughout the year. 

And I've just spotted something on ravelry front page, about a new tab in Notebook. Might be interesting...

2018 knitting

Happy New Year!  I'm pleased to see the back of 2017, though sadly 2018 won't be any better, with my parents in poor health as well as my brother's ongoing health issues,  I do have something to look forward to though. I'm going to be a great auntie again :)  More baby knhitting!en I want to cast on in the near future. 

I'm not going to do an actual list of resolutions this eyar. Instead, I;m going to concentrate on sorting out stash, which has multo[;oed and become increasingly messy and disorganised.

So I'm going to TRY to only buy if it's for a specific project, or a bargain, or a shop update for a yarn I love and it flies off the shelves (I know I can[t resist these!)

I'm in two clubs and will TRY to knit these up, I failed miserably in 2017!

Antoher area I need to address is my pattern stash.  Out of curiosity I started a search on ravelry of pattterns in my library which I haven't knitted.  Yikes.  Nearly 400! OK some are free and some are ebooks, but still, a lot there!  I have a plan. I'm going through different categories and adding a few to my ravelry queue. What a great idea. I must be the only one who doesn't use their queues, How on earth do you remember patterns you're interested in?  I tend to buy and download onto my phone (which goes awry when the phone breaks and I haven't backed it up) or add to my cart but not purchase.  This might be the way to go for me in the future.  I'm aiming for about 20 patterns, so I may add about 30 and hope to knit more!

Oh and Im having a decluttering January, wher I'm getting rid of (not necessarily chucking, if it's goo f ofor charity or family) one item on the 1st, two items on the  2nd, and so on. I did this last year and by the end of the month was counting bits of pater as one item!  So far so good, I've decluttered six things!

That's the knitting resolutions,  I'm off to a good start,  I'm knitting a 3 color cowl in mini skeisn,  a shawl and a cardigan using stash.  

I'd like to organise my ravelry stash too, but that might be asking too much...