skein

MrC's dyeing experiment

A few decades ago I knitted a Rowan jumper.  The yarn was Rowan's much missed Magpie.  I can't remember exactly when I knitted this, but it surely was in the eighties.  The style is oversized and drop shouldered (or is that drop sleeved?).  I don't know many woman who can carry off two oversized rectangles, with shoulders ending halfway down your arm!!   I also knittted this when I was much bigger, Several years ago I found it and tried it on.  Ridiculous. The sleeves were hanging over my hands!  MrC tried it on and it fitted him much better.  He decided to keep it and have it as his winter jumper.  

 

Now we hav a rule in this household. If I knit for him he is in charge of washing his own stuff.  His jumpers aren't washed that often.  They're indoors outerwear and he tends to do them when they start looking grubby.  Of course this cream jumper gets very grubby and he's been on at me for a few years to knit antoher one, in the same type of wool (warm) but in darker colours, so that it doesn't need washing as frequently.  

A month or so ago he thought he'd dye it instead. Why waste a good jumper just becuse it's the wrong colour?  He went with cold water dying, less fussy.  Originally he looked at orange and other bright colours, but common sense prevailed and he chose navy blue.  

He didn't wear gloves, against my advice.

But he now is the proud owner of a darkish blue grey  jumper, which requires far less washing! The photo doesn't do it justice, it's darker in real life, not as washed out as this.

 

Ravellenics days 1, 2 and 3

NOT a great start to the Games!   More training needed!

I  thought that I had it sussed.  Get in from work, get changed, eat, sit down and cast on.  Well, I dithered a bit.  Even napped. So it was 10pm before I sat down to knit From Russia with Love, a mosaic cowl pattern from Stitchnerd.  

Saturday saw me frogging it.  I swapped the MC and CC, so that the lighter colour was MC.  Knit, knit, knit, all afternoon.  Time for a change. Let's cast on another cowl.  Except I needed to choose another pattern, and that meant getting onto ravelry and investigating projects for each patttern.  my space-time continuum distored, and before i knew it, many hours had passed.  

Sunday morning was yarn choosing day.  I'd dug out a lot of the dk 'cowl'  yarns, but wanted to see them in daylight.  Narrowed it down to a handful.  Decided that the red 4ply for the TGV shawl wasn't what I wanted, and found some Easyknits DW Plump, in Honey (not as orange as this, but certainly an orange rich honey shade).

Now for the next cowl.  I've chosen Swithways, whic seems suited to a nearly solid yarn.  I've chosen Manos Maxima.  Cast on, knitted an inch, and arghhh! I've knitted in some wool from the other cowl, which I'd left lying on the floor next to me, not in a knitting project bag!  So more frogging.  As of bedtime last night I'd knitted an inch. BUT have now decided to frog this too, and restart on larger needles!  I had a needle cull a few years ago, gave away a lot of the larger needles, and most of my needle sets, which would have been so handy right now!  I must learn that I flit between favourite needles, and what may be out of favour one minute might be in favour the next!  I do have larger sizes, but not many in 60cm length, and quite a few cables have become more rigid over the years. 

Tonight I'll work on From Russia with Love.  I'm about a third done.  The colours are lime and a red purple, Biggan dk.

 

 

Ravellenic Games begin today!

Unfortunately I'll still be at work and will be at least three hours behind.

I thought that I had it sussed.  Two WIPs, a dishcloth, a shawl and a cowl, to begin.  But last night Follow my Arrow was frogged.   

My needle unscrewed from the cable, and I didn't notice until half of the row had fallen off!  Under normal circumstances I'd have slowly picked up the stitches, possible tinking back a row if too many SSK had come undone,  But I had a few reservationa about this shawl. 

1) Having seen the spoiler photos I much preferred the single colour shawls, especially  in lighter shades which show off the lace and texture.

2)  I chose my two shades as contrasting - light and dark, anticiapting a narrow striped shawl, rather than one with bit bigs of one colour.  

3) It would have looked a lot better if Colour 1 was the lighter colour.

I took a photo before frogging, which shows off the asymmetrical shape.  Pattern options were BBB.

This is the second project I've frogged this year!  I wonder if I'm becoming a bit more selective, or impatient! 

So it's frogged, one less WIP to do for Ravellenics, leaving me with just one WIP!! Really!  It's the Babette blanket and I WILL finish it!  I've decided on a plain border, just granny stripes.  I'm limited to colours so (so far) it's yellow and turquoise.  I have  raspberry, orange and red in large enough quantities.  I'm thinking of either orange or raspberry at this stage.  

Ravellenic Games, here I come!

Ringing out 2013

I hope that everyone had a lovely Christmas.  We had a very quiet Christmas, just the two of us. 

I did a little shawl blocking,

Better Together, a ravelry MKAL.

I did a little scarf blocking

Boo Humbug! , another ravelry MKAL.

I did some knitting.  

Kraka, third time lucky I hope.  My tension was out, so it's been sat here waiting for me to frog it and restart in a size smaller. This I did on Christmas day, but had to frog again when I realised that I was using a size smaller needles AND knitting a size smaller.  I've gone up a size but kept the smaller needles.

But the majority of the time off work I babetted.

The blanket is a mix of two, four, six, eight, ten and twelve round squares.  The consturction is similar to a log cabin, with each panel being progressively larger,  I'd already joined six of the panelts, just another (ever increasing) four to go!

My plan was to crochet all of the larger squreas (done) and leave the smallest, the two and four round squares till last.  I'm using the leftovers from my Groovyghan, and didn;t want to run short of colours on the larger, outer rounds.

Panels seven and eight went well, but nine and ten had loads of two arnd foru round squares to crochet, and I started getting a bit anxious aobut running out of colours, so I've now done all fo the crochet for all of the squares, with (hopefully) enough left for the border.

24 two round squares and the start of the four round squares.

 All 24 of the four round squares

 

The next job is to join these last two panels, sew them all together, and wrok the  border.  I'm having a little break for the moent.  Mr C rna the vacuum around my knitting chair, and sent me a text 'hoover looks like it sucked in someone wearing a multi coloured jumper' Oops.

I'm not going to have New Year resolutions this year.  I always seem to fail!  But will persevere with trying to knit from stash and join as many KALs as I can manage!

 

Happy New Year!

Quick knitting catch-up

I seem to have a lot (for me) of little projects ont he go at the moment.

I have socks, plain blue ones which I am determined to finish this month, in time for Christmas. No photo, I keep forgetting to take any!  I'm only on the heel flap of the first one, not looking good for finishing this moneth!

I have a finished a Wurm hat, another Christmas present.  Needs ends darning in and a wash.  A late night photo with uncombed hair in dim light!

Another Christmas gift, more felted clogs, are started. No photos yet. 

A KAL, this is the Safe Haven cowl, from the Inspriation knits ravelry group.  Knit a strip, pick up sts each edge, work one side of the cowl, do a turning row and work the other side (which happens to be striped, though I have no photos)

 

Another KAL, a mystery shawl in the ravelry group You and I MKAL series.  No photos, but I'm using some anonymous Shetland type yarn. It;s knitted from the bottom up, so starts off with very long rows.

And finally the Woolly Wormhead annual mystery hat KAL. I hope that this phtoos is vague enough and doesn't give too much away.  Knittee in Scrumptious DK, Deep Aqua. 

 

No chance of me getting a bit bored! In fact, I'm even thinking about joining another KAL next month. The KAL bug seems to have bitten. 

This weekend I've...

finished my 20th book (I include audiobooks so they don't imp0ose on knitting time)

sewn buttons on Audrey in Unst, finally

knitted a little bit on my sock

Knitted up to the armholes on Honeybee

... and started the sleeve

Knitted not one

but three dishcloths

I needed a few more, and prefer the single, lighter colour dishcloths.  The darker, multi colour one is for Mr C for the boat. Great to use up oddments of yarn. 

So back to three wips.  I'm going to work on Honeybee and socks this week, ready for new projects in July!

Mid week catch-up

I finished the knitting on Audrey in Unst over the weekend.  I need to darn in the ends, and give it a good blocking. It seems quite small!  I know it's meant to be fitted, but still...  I've ordered 12 buttons today, so this will be done very soon. I just forgot to take a photo.

Sock knitting is progressing slowly,  Who knew it took so long to knit a plain sock>  These are for Mr.C>, but I think he may be disappointed in the lack of brightness.  Just a splash of yellow, one of his favourite colours.

And I've started a garment!  Not one for me, but one for an 18 month old little girl.  I'm knitting at a slightly tighter tension, so I've gone up to a 2 year old size.  Probably more useful for the late summer, in a larger size. I'm thinking of just knitting elbow length sleeves too, so she can wear it for longer.  You can't really see much from this photo, but it's a top down cardigan with ruffled sections, a bit like the Tea Leaves cardigan. I'm using some stashed Louisa Harding Kashmir, in a red-pink colour. Very easy knitting.

And i've swatched for my next adult garment. I'm pretty sure that I can get tension in Kauni for my sleeveless top, but the other one, a yellow summer cardigan, was hopelessly out in tension. I've washed it and will measure it to see if it's grown 50% in row tension!

Knitting catch up

With crochet sucking up my weekends my knitting time has dwindled to workday evenings.  That's a few hours each evening.   Unfortaunaltely when i get in I tend to crash, eat dinner, check out ravelry and twitter and news, and sometimes don't do much knitting at all. 

The past few weeks have been quite bad for knitting production.  I have just one mitten ornament to show!

One evening knitting a mitten orna
ment 

This is one of 24 I'll be knitting. I didn't quite trust the pattern and added a few extra rows of thumb, I hsould have followed the pattern, it looks a bit long in proportion to the hand!

The pattern is a free Knitpicks pattern. (That's the ravelry link). I've been wanting to knit this for a while. 

The other nine evenings of knitting time were spent tryng to knit fingerless mitts.  Unsuccessfully.  It went like this: 

First pattern, Straighforward Mitts: lnit, frog, knit, frog.  Silly mistakes, trying to knit witout any markers!

Second pattern, Basketry Mitts: knit frog. The pattern didn't show up well iwth my yarn choice.

Third pattern, Chivalry Mitts:knit frog, knit frog. I tried this with some black background yarn, didn't like it, found some nicer blue-green yarn but thought the hearts could do with a more solid colour yarn.

So, back to the drawing board.  I like all three patterns, so they will be knitted,  In fact I may well go back ot pattern #1 and take my time, use stitch markers.  

My monthly knitting goals are not going well!  IN the next two weeks I need to knit a fourth strip of my Groovyghan, a pair of mitts, a pair of socks, a pair of slippers and a few repeats of my double knit Bubbles scarf!  Better get a move on!

No knitting = no blog posts

Oh dear.  A long weekend away, plenty of knitting opportunities and I've done hardly any knitting.  It was my dad's birthday on Saturday, lots of visitors, not much time to knit, too busy chatting!   I've managed to knit a few squares of Maja's blanket, and a quarter of a sock, but that's all.

Monday evening I decided to cast on a garment.   After all, i have six to do in three months!  The weekend was warm, and I thought I might have time to whip up a short sleeved cotton summer cardy.  Out came the Rowan Cotton Glace.   Out came the pattern, Addie, from Twist Collective. 

This is a garment worked from bottom up, then the short sleeves are knitted in the round and joined seamlessly to the body.   The bottom 1x1 ribbed borders are knitted separately and then joined to work the body.

Alarm bells rang as soon as I looked at the suggested yarn (worsted weight) and the tension (24st and 36 rows).  Riiight.  Glace has a tension of 23sts so if I go down a few needle sizes I can get the correct tension.

Bottom bands done, and the first two rows of body patern are worked (just st st with some LT and a few purl sts).   Not that confident, as the ribbed bottom bands look as if they wouldn't fit a 10yo.  I have to stretch them right out to fit me!

Never mind, let's get on with the body.  

And that's when the mega booming alarm bells go off.  ABSOLUTELY NO WAY WILL THIS BE DONE IN A FLASH!   There are 14 charts!  Each size uses them in a different order.  Each chart is a different number of stitches, and a different number of rows.  I'd have to be an idiot to try to knit this in a few weeks.  

It's frogged, time to go back to the drawing board.  Harumph.  

Hardly any knitting done this week

I knitted for an hour on Monday evening, and then not at all on Tuesday or Wednesday.  Five minutes on Thursday.  This has to be the least amount of time I have knitted in four days in the last 25 years!  No commuting/carry along knitting, so I haven't even had something I could throw in my bag just in case.  

One of the reasons is that I have too few projects on the go.   Crochet and Mr. C's Herbivore are not calling out to me right now, and Madrigal is, well, very boring at the moment, and I'm so fed up with all of this dark navy.  

But the main reason is that I have a new phone and have spent the past few evenings playing with it - moving data and reloading my apps from my old android phone.   I've had a couple of issues with connectivity, but I just restart the phone (which is very quick). I suspect bt openzone has something to do with it, so I've disabled that when I'm within reach of home or office wifi.   

As I have no knitting, I took a photo with the new phone.  It's  Herbivore which is the same size as the last time I took a photo.  Surprisingly, with all the busy colour, you can still see the texture. Remember, not my choice of colours!

I have no plans for Olympic training this weekend - all of the projects I want to do are bagged with needles and yarn.  I want to sort out my Different Lines shawl which has a hole!  It only came to light after I took it off the blocking wires and pins.  I don't think it's moth damage,  the yarn doesn't look eaten and it's a break in one strand at one point.  It's not really a hole but blocking and stretching makes is seem so.  I've secured the stitches (which thankfully haven't ran) with needles, ready for grafting. There's only about three stitches top and bottom, but I  need to tink out a bit to ensure the ends don't unravell.  (OK is it unravel or unravell??????)  

Oh, let's not forget Madrigal.  Unless I get home very late and/or very drunk tonight I ought to finsih that first sleeve, only a few more inches to go.  I intend getting a good bit (hopefully all) of the second sleeve done. I only have this weekend and four evenings till Ravellenics.