skein

ISE5 has arrived!

What a treat!  I have been spoilt!  Lots of lovely goodies in here. My pal is Betty Jean, and she has come up trumps for me.

Look at these goodies!

There lots of flavoured coffee (yum, vanilla), toffee and chocolate bars, snacks, some orange and spice tea (very Christmassy), notelets, a novelty tape measure, nail file, some lavender body lotion and a Texas key ring!  A skein of Classic Elite Alpaca Sox,
which I've not seen before - very lovely and soft!

The scarf is brilliant, it's garter stitch on the diagonal in three colours, and the colour changes are very effective - everyone here in the office admires it and I'm wearing my brown coat today - it goes so well with it!  Thank you so much BJ, this is a real treat!

In my knitting news I haven't picked up the Bee Fields Shawl, which is my weekly wip.  I was too tired last night to knit lace, so I finished off the fingerless gloves from Louisa Harding's new accessory book, much shortened and still requiring more than one ball of yarn!

Pattern: Victoria Fingerless Mittens

Book: Louisa Harding's Knitting Little Luxuries

Yarn: Grace (Louisa Harding ** pattern calls for 1 ball, and I used approximately 1.12 balls!  With a shorted pattern too!

Modifications:  I suspected that one ball would not be enough, so I
1) worked it in the round, losing the two seam stitches throughout the length.
2) shortened both the ribbing (by 13 rows) around the wrist and the palm length (by another 2 rows). Not a problem, as these are a gift for someone with a smaller hand, but still!

I'd make these again as I love the picot edging. Grace is a dk weight yarn, so there's lots of possible substitutions.

Tuesday night I also did very little knitting, but it wasn't the Bee Fields! I cast on a baby cardigan for a speedy Christmas present.
Aran weight, it shall be a quick project!

Eve Scarf for my ISE5 pal

Finally, a finished scarf! 

Pattern : Eve, a kit by Kim Hargreaves.
Yarn: Rowan Kid Silk Haze, one ball in each colour.
Extra: 442 beads (the kit came with size 8 beads)
Adjustments: I grafted the two halves together rather than use a 3 needles cast off.  Hardly necessary, this is a fuzzy yarn and who'd notice, even on a near stationary horse?

For: my ISE5 pal!

 

and modelled by Chris. We took this photographs on Sunday late afternoon, same time as the glove shots, which is why he's showing them off again. 

 

These have an ocean to cross, so I'm posting them today.

This must mean...

that I've finished Eve!  Ahead of schedule as well.  The Plan was to knit x repeats per day, finish it on Saturday, wash it on Sunday and post it on Monday.  I finished it last night.  I'll wash it over the weekend and try to take some outdoor photos.  This means that I'll be on the lookout for goodies this weekend to go in the parcel.  I already have the packing material (aka lace yarn).   

Tonight I'm working on hint 7 of Secret of the Stole.  I have most of this still to knit, but I'm confident that I'll catch up this weekend. Won't it be great, a big project wrapped up for November?  I am (shhh) trying to reduce my wips so that I have a clean slate (or cleanish) for the New Year.

Eve progress

I'm getting there.  I'm now halfway through the stripes on the second half.
Unfortunately I missed daylight.

Shot in the very dim living room lighting.

Another shot in the bathroom, over the shower curtain pole.  Not much better.

Next time you see this it will be finished; I want to get this in the post a week on Monday.  We are meant to post on or before 1st December, so I'll have five extra days - my ISE5 pal is over the water.
I'm enjoying this, but as you can imagine, an 84" narrow scarf can be a bit tedious, and already I'm thinking that I can start a million new projects next week.   I must make another list!

ISE5 - scarf exchange

I'm at the half way mark.  The scarf is knitted in two pieces, end to centre, and then joined. 
Here's the first half

Now this second photo was taken late afternoon, but doesn't it look like a night time photo?

Just think, a month ago these twigs looked fantastic!

NaBloPoMo  November 4th.

ISE5 - scarf exchange

I've been reading the ISE5 blog, and although the scarves don't need to be received until December, quite a few participants seem to have finished their scarves already.

My pal doesn't mind which type of scarf she gets, and this time around I've decided to do a long and skinny scarf - Eve, by Kim Hargreaves.

The kit arrived on Friday (a few weeks late, we've had a postal strike here in SE London and our post is severely delayed).
Bright pink and purple!  The purple's a royal purple colour, not as blue as in this photo.

It's 87" long, knitted in two pieces and joined in the middle.  There's a beaded ruffled edging, then a simple striped pattern for the rest of the scarf.

This is fairly representative of the colour

and these show the pattern.
 

It's such a simple pattern but very effective, with the Kid Silk Haze. You just can't go wrong with this stuff!

Sockaloozer socks are here!

Yes!  My pal, Amy Jo, has had a few problems with my socks, this is the second pair which she's knitted for me, as one of the socks from the first pair went walkies (Roza's socks, which by coincidence were my last finished pair!). Oh, and she's managed a huge move as well!

These socks are Thuja socks, another great knitty pattern, using Shepherd Worsted in Blackberry, one of my favourite LL shades.

That isn't such a great photo of the colour ... see below!
Also included were a couple of bars of yummy chocolate which has already been opened (I'm at work, so it's being shared out) and some Artyarns merino - fingering weight, which I've never seen before. I'm sure it is fingering weight, it's got the yardage and it looks like 4ply. A gorgeous shade!

Here's some dodgy on-the-foot shots. It is so difficult to get a good shot!  I tried to get a work colleague to take some photos, but my camera shut down on her!
 

The colour is much lighter in these shots, and I've sneaked outside for the pub-table shot (much to the drinkers' bemusement)

Thank you so much Amy Jo!

Sockapaloozers on their way!

Yes, I have two pals. I'm a sock saviour to the second pal.  Both socks have been finished for a while, but I needed to get some padding for the packages and wash the socks, these things take me time...

Here they are all ready to go, with a  printed label courtesy of Danielle 
 

Sockapaloozer #1's socks are the Embossed Leaf socks from IK, also found in their Favorite Socks book.  Knitted in Koigu.

Sockapaloozer #2's socks are the Monkey Socks, knitted in Lorna's Laces Mixed Berries.

Both pairs were a joy to knit, which of course makes the sock knitting time whizz by.

One pair is for North America, the other pair is for Canada, and should be with the recipients some time next week.  I hope they like them!

Sockapaloozer Embossed Leaves socks

Not the greatest photographs of my completed Embossed Leaves socks, from Favorite Socks, but the best that I could manage at 6.30am, in the mad rush before work!

2 skeins of koigu, afraid I don't know the shade as the labels are long gone.  I did my usual cast on instead of the funny ribbed cast on, as my tension was a bit off, and there's nothing worse than tight ribbing on socks.  I didn't follow the pattern for the heels and toes either (which cleverly mimic the leaf pattern) as the koigu was gaping a bit on the 2.75mm needles.  I frogged the first toe (where I'd worked out how to reverse the patterning to accommodate the extra half pattern repeat) and just knitted a plain toe on smaller needles. These socks are *nearly* done.  I found out that I'd grafted a few sts on one toe in reverse, so I have 2 purl sts presenting. This will need to be sorted out, but hey, I have 2 months!

The next sockapaloozer sock is on the needles, just. I'm a sock saviour, so these are for pal #2.  After much changing of minds, I've settled on Go with the Flow, again from Favorite Socks.

This is the cuff; I've another inch of main pattern knitting done now. The yarn is CTH supersock, from the Woollyworkshop sock club. I think the colour (it's a Potluck shade) is great for these socks, just a little variation. The lace reminds me of water, and I'm sure this shade of Potluck is a watery one (again, lost the label!)

My knitting seems to have slowed down, and I feel that I'm not making much progress on my June goals, though I have a cardigan on the go for baby O, another pair of plain socks for me (cinema knitting, and did I need it!  Pirates of the Carribean is very long!). Summer braids is going slow too, this is lunchtime knitting, and I haven't had much time for longer lunch breaks (such as now, blogging rather than knitting).

Brigid has put out a request for 0-5yo knitting, going to Kisiizi, so I shall turn my attention to hunting out some wool for this in the next few days.

Ravelry

I'm sure most of you have already read blog posts about Ravelry. I've just joined over the weekend (and only know two people!), so haven't had much time to look through the site, but so far, everything that I've seen has been fabulous. 

It really helps if you have a flickr account. You can register and not pay, with limited uploads of photos each month, or pay and have unlimited uploads.  Ravelry will upload your flickr photos with a few clicks of the mouse. 

I've just added my current wips, and what's really cool is that most of the yarns are already listed, so I can just click on the search button and my yarns came up!  As did most of the patterns. You can see how many people have used your yarn, or your pattern.  You can log your stash, your future queued knitting, see other peoples stuff.  I could spend hours looking at everyone's wips and fos!  If you haven't put your name down on the waiting list, now's the time!

And one more thing - Audible have a few of the Yarn Harlot's books on audio! At Knits End and the Casts Off.

ISE4 - finished!

Diamond Fantasy Shawl by Sivia Harding, using Seasilk in the Ocean Colour. This was a remarkably quick knit, it was finished in a weekend. The pattern is easy, the instructions are clear, and Seasilk is a dream to knit with.  I knitted seven repeats (after threading through a lifeline after the sixth repeat, in case I ran out of yarn) and had about 8g left over.

Here it is blocking on some interlocking playmats, which I'd seen on Heather's blog.  Great investment, it's much easier to pin out the shawl, and kinder to old knees than a carpet.

Now my resident shawl-wearer has left the company, and I'm afraid that the three alternative models didn't seem to know how to wear a shawl!  But here are lots of finished photos anyway. I went through 3 models!  My own shot (trying to take a photo of the back view in a mirror) was abysmal; let's just say that the shawl wasn't even in the shot, just a close up view of the side of my face!

And last, two shots of the shawl hung on the wall.

Hope my pal likes it!  It's in the post now, and *clue* it's going to the west coast of North America - is it for you???