skein

A few more KALs to join in 2012

Since I've hardly picked up the knitting this week (late nights home, staff party) I thought I'd blog instead about a few plans for next year's knitting.

IntSweMoDo2012

I've signed up again for this ravelry kal - 12 finished adult sweaters in 2012.  I last did this in 2010. but as I was also in 10shawls2010 it was  a bit much, something had to give, and I thought I'd had enough of garment knitting,  Not so!  I managed four garments this year and the wishlist is getting longer by the month.  Each new season brings a flurry of new designs, and every book I buy has several in I love (or I wouldn't buy them!).  Add ravelry designers and the list is growing exponentially, I'm sure!

I'm not making a definitive list.  But I do have a loose idea about what might be included:

Kate Davies' new pattern, Boreal, a lovely Christmas jumper which I bought as soon as I saw it.  My initial thought was to knit it in the Artesano Aran.  Instead, I've opted for a slightly cheaper and thinner yarn, Brown Sheep Worsted (which is on offer at Get Knitted, and they have free UK postage).   I'm going for a subdued Christmas jumper.  The colours I've bought are Old Sage and Oatmeal. 

Not a great photo, must get a new camera, as I'm relying on my mobile!

The Oatmeal is more like a light tan than cream. Not sure how it will look, will have to swatch!

Another Kate Davies design, Deco.  I've wanted to knit this one since it came out, but have resisted buying the pattern until now.  I have several stashed yarn which might be suitable - Rowan's Felted Tweed and Elann's Highland Sportweight yarn. 

Monday Morning Cardigan by Laura Chau.  It's worsted weight, so I shall have to look in my stash for a suitable yarn. 

Lauriel by Ysolda Teague.  Loved Cria and Chickadee! 

From books:

Something from A Stitch in Time, either volume, there are stacks I love.  Probably a 4ply one.

Something from Knit One, Knit All.  Garter stitch!

Something from A Fine Fleece.  I knitted Harriet a few years ago, and there's several cabled sweaters I like.

Generally:

A fairisle or colour work garment.  Not sure what yet.

A lace cardigan (or bits of lace, not necessarily heavily laced)

That's nine garments already!  I'm aiming to knit at least six with stash, hopefully nine (but I do get tempted...) One so far is new stuff - that's Boreal.   I've an olive green jumper which is too big, and that's for the frog pile.  It's Jaeger EFM aran I think.  And the garment is top down, so it ought to be easier than frogging a pieced garment.

The second kal I will be joining in 2012 is NaKniMitMo - knit mittens thoughout January. This year I failed miserably in my 11 mittens in 2011 quest - guess the warm weather put me off!  As usual, I have  long list of mittens I wish to knit.

Double Knit: Lucy Neatby's Pinstripe DK Mittens or Julia Mueller's Autumn Leaves.  I love both, and wish I could knit both, but common sense tells me that I'll get fed up of double knitting after one pair.  I also love both designers and have knitted several of their patterns. Decisions.

Stranded: I've just bought THREE of Spilleyjane's patterns.  Swedish Fish,  Illuminine, which will be the KAL for NaKniMitMo and Polska.  I doubt I'll manage more than one pattern ...

Just in case I finish these, I have plenty more mitten books and patterns to try out!  But I'd be very pleased to just knit two pairs!

Meanwhile one clog is done.  The colour is bright yellow, and that's a shadow on the top of the clog.

This and that

I've spent the last two nights over at the stashflat, as we've had a tube strike and it's much easier for me to commute from there into work.  I've not done much knitting though!

Monday evening I decided to wash the Forest Path Stole. 
Very grubby water (that's six months of knitting for you)

Very shrivelled up piece of wet cashmere

Blocking

It's enormous!  The blocked measurements should be 85"x30", but my shawl was already 30" before blocking, so I've added an inch to stretch out the entrelac lace panels. 
It was still damp last night, so I'm leaving it for a few more days. God knows when I'll find time to take photos, the weather's so gloomy at the moment, and it's too dark when I get home (not that late, but dusk) for decent photos.

So that was Monday night.  I also wound up some Kauni

Tuesday evening I browsed through knitting books for a pattern.  Lots of lovely candidates, but I've finally gone for the pattern for which I bought the yarn, Autumn Cardigan. (Click on Strikning, then on the pattern photo and there's a flag for english.)
The cone on the right is going into stash and isn't destined for this pattern. I think I'll use it for a shawl of some sort. I've accidentally brightened the photo and it's not quite as bright as shown, a bit more subtle.  I'll be casting on tonight!

Kim Hargreaves

I'm still poorly. I have been so ill that I've hardly knitted at all since Monday lunchtime!  So no new photos, still half a sleeve to go and the front borders. 

On another note, just in time for the end of the challenge (I know, I know, stash reduction!) Kim Hargreaves has brought out her new collection. Very nice. I'm very tempted!

(Oh, I hope to work on the Olympian knitting tonight, I'd so like to finish this on Saturday!)

Winter Olympics Challenge

I had a little turn when I realised that the flame is lit on FRIDAY and not Saturday night!  There's only four evenings left to reach a decision. Everyone else sorted yet?

I've narrowed it down.  Initially I had about a dozen garments on my list, it's now max four runners.

DB Aplaca silk aran.  A year old than the dk weight, and reclaimed from Lara, so two stars to this one.  I love the cardigan too.
Last year's Women's weekly knitting supplement.

 
2) Casual cables    in either Rowanspun or Calmer.

3) Braids cardigan again in either Rowanspun or Calmer.

4) Martha in felted tweed (after seeing Tracy's)

5) Elise in felted tweed.

 

I'm leaning towards the first option - what do you think?

 

River's on track

Yes!  I nearly have a Finished Object!  I need to:
block
sew in ends

for the scrunchie:
find some elastic and sew the ends together
sew the scrunchie covering around the elastic

I'm staying over at the stash flat (loads more floor space with no chance of anyone stepping on it) so will block the shawl tonight and cross my fingers that it's dry tomorrow. 

Unblocked River

I've made it one repeat wider, and added about three repeats to the length.

At lunchtime I knitted the scrunchie.  Luckily there was a packet of silvery beads in the office cupboard!

I've also finished the shell socks, but need some daylight to capture the lace pattern. We were away this weekend, so I've missed out on the daylight again!  I'll have to bring them to work and go out lunchtime on a photo shoot! 

This is just in time for lots of new knitalongs, involving socks. 

Starting tomorrow we have sockapalooozer, the third round.  We'll be getting details of our new partners, can't wait

The vintage socks knitalong starts another pattern from Nancy Bush's book.

There's also a new pattern out for the Six Socks Knitalong.  I've not knitted any of the patterns this year  but I may be tempted by this next pattern, it's beaded and I have a box of beads.

I've started several socks this past week or two, but all of them have serious pooling (see Mary's post - she's having the same problem, it seems), so they're back in the sock yarn pile.  Good job too, I need to sort out my wips!

I've found a list of knitalongs, if anyone feels like joining in. I may have posted this link before, it's astonishing that there are so many out there!

December already!

Wow!  Where's the year gone? The next five weeks are busy for us here.  We don't just have Christmas I (here), Christmas II (Chris's parents) and New Year, we also have 5 birthdays!  That includes Chris's, mine and Billy's (today!).

I'm rapidly reassessing my knitting presents as well.  Cutting right back, I can just about get by with finishing one scarf (half done) and 2.5 prs of men's socks. 

I had yesterday off work, and went over the the Stash flat to chill out, watch dvds and knit away on Christmas gifts.  Hmmm.  I intended working on these:

Chris's Tiger birthday socks.

I knitted instead on other things, only one of which is a gift.

This is the first sleeve of Trellis.

I really would like to finish this by the end of the year. It's been hanging around for a few years.  I don't do well with garter stitch (unless I have a brilliant book to read).

One more repeat on the Mystery Shawl.

It's a wide border.  I have 11 more repeats to go. It's really boring (but the finished shawls look great, and I love the Jamieson's yarn).
Another one that needs to be finished this year.

Vintage yarn

For my Vintage socks Kal:

And the Christmas knitting.  It's the Rowan free membership gift, quite a nice little scarf.

This is a lovely teal colour, not blue!  Blame the flash, and shorter daylight hours!

I've been working away a little bit on Suzette, but this is slow going. Wouldn't it be grand to finish Trellis, Suzette and the Mystery shawl in the next four weeks. It would clear the wip pile somewhat, ready for 2006 (!)

Decisions (and Fall Knitty)

I've decided that my Knitting Brain wants to knit socks, socks, a bit of lace, a lot of lace and no garments.   That's why I'm slumped.  There's nothing wrong with Martha or the Asymmetrical ribbed jumper, but I just don't want to knit cardigans or jumpers at the moment. Rather than force the issue, I'll spend the weekend finishing off the individual pieces (Martha's first sleeve, Asymmetrical's front) and pack them away for a month or two, see if I am inspired after a break.

Fall knitty's out today as well.  This issue is far more appealing to me than the man's issue. .

What do I like?  At first glance, there are several designs which look knittable.  I'm not sure if some of these designs look knittable because of the appealing photos (bloom, bubby) or that the yarn is readily available over here without me having to recalculate to substitute (arisaig, blackberry, flora, edgar).  And a pair of koigu socks (2 skeins).  A Good issue, this one.

On the needles (very uninspiring)
Plain socks for me, lost the sock band, but they're cotton blend.  I suspect the second sock will be fraternal. I can't see a repeating pattern in the first sock at all.  Correction, I've just started the repeating pattern as I near the toe.

And another lace shawlette. This one is the basket leaves shawl pattern, originally printed in Interweave knits, but now available as a Fibertrends pattern, adapted for different sizes (shoulder shawl, small shawl, large shawl) and different yarn weights.  I'm using some kaalund laceweight yarn for this one. The first yarn (probably kaalund, felt the same but again, I#ve lost the ball band!) was too variagated to show off the lace pattern. This is more of a subtle variegation, lavender with bits of green. The photo isn't showing the lace pattern at all, but at least you can see that the colours are subtle.

In the pipeline
I also have two new patterns which I'm very interested in knitting, both fibertrends, one's a shawl and one's a scarf.

Fuschia Lace scarves.  I can see myself knitting these in some fine dk yarns. Great for Christmas presents.

And Spring Blossoms shawl.  I just love symmetrical patterned designs. I don't much like knitting them, but I like the effect. 

Which reminds me that I have some Robert Powell shawl patterns which I want to knit. Looks like I'll have a lot of SHIPs (SHawls In Progress) on the needles!

Hamilton, Startitis and Work Experience

Hamilton is not finished yet. I've lots of ends to darn, and four more rows on the bottom edging.  I'm running out of yarn, and my last hope (unless I want to buy another ball) is that I have some remnants at work.  Hope so. Will find out tomorrow if I've chucked them or not.
Hamtilon - the final edging.

Startitis.
There are so many wonderful patterns out there.  I know that I ought to be working on Martha, or Wisteria, or my sockapal2zer socks, or my addsellbuy exchange, but I just can't help looking around for future wips, after all my wips list is well into single figures, and, just as some people aren't comfortable with too many projects, I'm not comfortable with too few.   

So I've cast on this:

It's from stash as well. It's summer tweed, and I'm knitting Glee.

I'd forgotten just how much I loathe knitting with this stuff, at least it will be a quick knit.

Work Experience.
Billy is spending two weeks in the office, on work experience.  Light office work, nothing too taxing.

So for two weeks he has to:
Work a full day in the office (well 9-5)
Commute from Southfields via Wimbledon to Waterloo.
Buy Lunch.

Chris gives him £20 for lunch for the week.  What's a 15yo boy to do with all of that dosh?
1) buy batteries for his cd player (mp3 out of action)
2) skip breakfast, buy a burger at wimbledon station, and eat it (whilst listening to loud music) on the packed commuter train.
3) buy a Macdonalds for lunch.
4) Day 2 - vary the breakfast - try a cornish pastie, eat it on the train.
5) Day 2 - vary the lunch - buy a burger, but from Jennys.

So he's out of money now and full of crap.

He's used to finishing school at 3pm.  Today he left work at 5pm, and should have been back within the hour.   I got home at 7.30 and no sign of Billy.  Only the second day, and he's so shattered that he's fallen asleep on the train and ended up 'in the country'. Arrived back (starving) about 8 pm tonight. 3 hour commute home!

We've suggested that he eats his breakfast before boarding the train (I doubt he'll be on cereal this week!).  It's easy to get complacent with a bright, articulate (sometimes) 15yo, and forget just how much they don't know yet.

A weapon of menace

In the past month I have managed to stab myself twice with knitting needles. The last time was yesterday morning, when I sat on the sofa and found my missing fourth dpn. I have no idea how deep it went, as I'm really squeamish about these sort of things and quickly pulled it out before I was sick. I can't believe that I've gone all of these years without any accidents and had two in one month!

On to knitting.

I didn't make Libertys last night (but I hear it was very crowded!) so I popped up to John Lewis this lunchtime. 

Bought buttons for Scoop, two sorts

As usual, I didn't measure the button holes. How big do buttons have to be for a k2tog, yo buttonhole?  I prefer the larger ones, they're less noticeable, I just hope that they aren't too big.

And ribbon for agnes (two sorts).  I had to take the sleeve to JL...

Now I like the brown ribbon on the sleeve, but the overall look might be better with the more subtle ribbon.

And I've started the six socks kal! 
Cashsoft 4ply, from stash. 

This pattern's lovely, and easy to memorise.

So what this weekend?  Well, I have no excuses, I will finish Scoop and Agnes.   

Just be very grateful that I didn't post the horrible picture of my stab wound.  Horrible. Not the stab wound, but the way that my leg has developed (apparantly overnight) into a 44 yo leg. Where did the supple teenage flesh disappear to?  Same place as the teenage bosom I think! 

Hamilton and Stashbusters

Before I post about my knitting progress (or lack of), here's a  lovely link to the v&a's knitting collection.  There are some forties patterns, including this gross balaclava.  I had no idea that you knitted ear slits!

Not much knitting done this week, I'm not very motivated. I haven't had much luck with getting a seat on the commute, although, if election promises are to be believed, the new Putney MP has this on her list!  We will see.

Hamilton is coming along slowly. Helped by the cold weather, of course.

Boring.

In the pipeline for my new May Stashbuster project is either
this:

which will most likely turn into a version of Chicknits Scoop du jour

or this (naturelle 8/8 cotton from elann)

which is awaiting the wash test to see if it will shrink.  I hear it shrinks in similar proportions to Rowan's denim.  And there are several designs that I have my eye on in Denim People...

Back to Lucy.  I haven't posted a FO pic yet, because I didn't have buttons. I now have the buttons, but I can't figure out how to sew them on.  Looking at the picture in Rowan 37, only one button is in use at one time? Why sew on two? I don't think that I'll be swapping over button/buttonholes, I'm used to doing up my buttons in the girly way.  If anyone can think of any reason why I need two buttons, please let me know!