Needles on the Move

Better late than never right?!

I posted very infrequently in 2010, but I did get a fair bit of knitting done. At least half of it in the later part of the year, after I got to the point where my back wasn’t bothering me any more. I can knit as much as I like now, as long as I’m sitting comfortably, and it’s made a HUGE difference to my motivation - as you can imagine. I’m working on achieving that same goal with spinning - at the moment I’m limited to sessions of about 30-45 mins at a time, although I can manage a few of those in the same day if I do some stretches in between.

So, the finished projects…

There were socks of course:

Laila’s Socks by Nancy Bush, which I’ve had the yarn for forever and have always wanted to knit. I cast them on Christmas Day and finished the first one on Boxing day - this pattern is dead simple! Pink no-purl Monkeys in Tosh Sock, LOVE knitting with this yarn and it’s wearing well. The red socks are made from yarn by a great friend, Pippa, and designed by another great friend, Ruth from Rock & Purl. There’s a second pair of Hopscotch socks, in Plucky Knitter yarn. I LOVED these socks and discovered holes in them just the other night :-( Not any fault with the yarn, I wore them (literally) to death, at least twice a week for nearly a year. Lastly, bright pink Koigu Amelie socks which were Ruth’s birthday present.

A major inspiration spark last year was the announcement that my sister-in-law was pregnant :-) There was baby stuff…

The tiny shoes (Tosh Sock leftovers) were for a friend’s baby, but the rest was sent to Australia for my new nephew Liam, born in October. I knitted the blanket from Rowan Wool/Cotton and I thoroughly recommend it. It’s nicely washable, great stitch definition and easy on the hands (I couldn’t do pure cotton). And of course, the obligatory Baby Surprise Jacket, and Elijah.

Lastly, a mish mash of all the other things that plopped off the needles (and loom) last year:

Yes, there was weaving - A scarf for Neil for Christmas from Devon Fine Fibres Cashmere (which I am in love with) and my charkha-spun cotton table runner. I had a bit of a run on mittens, only the Endpapers (koigu again) were for me, the other two were Christmas presents. My first Haruni was also gifted, but I plan to make another one, most likely also in Malabrigo sock as this one turned out so great. The little star was a present, the red bobble hat one of a string of bobble hats that seems to be never-ending. And my Snow Day Hat, handspun from Oceanwind Knits fibre, was actually the first thing I finished last year, but got the most use last month while I was in New York. It’s extremely warm!

There were two things that didn’t make it into this post, as I don’t have photos. One was a handtowel I made for Stephanie as a housewarming present, and the other was the first bobble hat - knitted for me, worn a million times, and still un-photographed!

So, bring on the 2011 knitting time now!

I have become such a lazy blogger - even when I have multiple finished objects, and pictures of them, I don’t seem to be able to get organized to blog about them! So here they are all together, the product of my needles over the last few months.

(sorry about the slightly rubbish quality of the photos - uploads from my blackberry are playing up at the moment)

More Monkey socks

I’ve knitted this pattern three times now, and will definitely do it again. There’s just something about it that makes it the perfect balance between not-boring and not-time-consuming. I prefer them without the purl stitches though (well, makes it even quicker).

Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A
Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Corsage (I am IN LOVE with this yarn and replaced this skein 8 rows before casting off)
Mods: No purl sts, toe-up

TIny Shoes

Because I couldn’t bear to stop knitting with the Tosh Sock!

Pattern: Tiny Shoes by Ysolda
Yarn: leftovers from above
Mods: I altered the strap slightly, but otherwise as written

Endpaper Mitts

My first time knitting this pattern, and first Koigu colourwork - in LOVE (um, does that make me a bigamist?…) The fabric created is just yummy :-)

Pattern: Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang
Yarn: Koigu PPPM, nearly a skein of MC a bit under half of CC
Mods: I changed the thumb to a normal gusset, and added an outline MC stitch each side to make clearer stripes.

Happy-Ruth Star

This was a little present to cheer up a pal who had a rough task to endure!

Pattern: Mini-Stern Kissen by Annette Maass
Yarn: Koigu PPPM scraps
Mods: I picked up sts for the second star rather than knitting two and sewing, added buttons.

As I suspected, once I finally got going it didn’t take me long to weave this project. I crossed the finish line well within the deadline and the runner (skier) is proudly holding up my spindle collection on the bookshelf.

I’m not entirely happy with the sett, the weaving seems a little loose to me. It may tighten up a little with a wash, but I haven’t washed it and somehow, now it’s in place, I suspect laziness will kick in!

I have a bit of yarn left over, I started with 100m of each colour and guess I used about half the green and most of the white. The runner measures 23″ including fringe and there wasn’t too much loom waste thankfully. One good thing about the Rigid Heddle is that you can pretty much weave right up to the end of the warp, I think I lost about 4 inches of yarn.

This was a practice run for a bigger project I’m planning later in the year, and I’m pretty confident now that I can manage that one without messing it up. I just have to get spinning for it!

Take 1 Snow Day, 1 skein of super-squidgy handspun yarn, 1 pair chunky needles.

Cast on 64sts and go around and around in mistake rib until lunchtime.

Make a warm and cosy kedgeree for lunch, ease out the sofa-kinks in your neck and shoulders.

Go around and around some more, contemplate turning on the TV but decide that watching stitches form in perfect squidgy yarn is enough.

Decrease sharply, knit i-cord until it becomes dull.

Weave in ends, and wear to watch the snow melt the next day.

Yarn: Handspun Merino 3-ply, fibre from Oceanwind Knits, heavy worsted/aran weight.
Colour: Galvanized
Needles: 5.5mm
Pattern: round 1: k2, p2 around, round 2: k1, p2, k1 around

When I first spun this yarn (last summer maybe?) I had a big squidgy hat in mind already. It’s perfect for it. And this fibre is amazing. In fact, my first thought when I finished the last bobbin… “No more Oceanwind Knits in my stash!” :-( And now it’s knitted up it’s really all gone.

Must buy some more…

Having a bad week this week has meant getting a lot of knitting done. Not a lot of homework sadly, but thank goodness it’s half term and at least I can catch up next week, and I don’t have to be in front of a class demonstrating Double Leg Stretch and being marked on it!

The Entangled Stitches Gloves are whizzing along and I have almost finished the first. I chose a relatively dark yarn, so I haven’t been able to work on them at night. But that’s probably a good thing, as my hands don’t really like the fine knitting for too long.

This picture was taken a while back, I have only two fingers left to do now on this one. Btw, I’ve never knitted fingers before - but it’s really just like doing lots of thumbs. The yarn is Malabrigo sock in Persia and I love it to death.

The Tangled Yoke is blocked and fits nicely (yay!) but is still without buttons. I was going to take a trip to Liberty and John Lewis this week but have been sat on the sofa instead, so it will have to wait a little longer. The Kind-of-Huron is waiting on me to figure out a problem in the pattern, so it’s on hold for a bit too.

I also finished another Tulip - for one of two babies due in February (hopefully at least one will be a girl!). The yarn is a new one that Stash has in, and it’s great - a wool/cotton blend called Spud and Chloe. It’s really lovely to work with and the colours are fantastic. I will definitely use it again.

The only other current project is some secret socks I’m knitting, but I’ve realised that Christmas is not that far away so perhaps I should get moving!

As we would (might) say down under.

Last summer I worked on a BIG project, but didn’t tell many people about it as I was 1) not really supposed to, and 2) really really afraid that fate would turn around and bite me on the butt. Gradually, there was movement. I finished, sent it off, waited some more… still didn’t say anything.

Then the preorder page for the book (a book!) appeared on Amazon, but I know all about fate and I didn’t want to bounce around just yet and then discover that actually, I’m not in this one - maybe next time…

Then on Friday I got a cheque in the post - a pretty good sign I thought - and then today I thought to look again aaaaaaand

You can actually look inside on Amazon and my name is right there in the table of contents :-D I’m on page 32 (which is also my age - coincidence?) and you can see a pic of my shawl on the facing page as well.

To celebrate, I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off!

I have a bad habit of buying knitting pattern books (and any craft pattern books for that matter) and then never knitting anything from them. Well, so far I’ve made two things from Nancy Bush’s Knitted Lace of Estonia and there’s loads more in there that I love. Besides which, I’d knit both patterns again in a flash.

Ruth jokingly claimed this knit even before I’d started, when I was gathering up projects to take on holidays. Well, she had a birthday coming up so I figured, why not? After marathon knitting on Tuesday and blocking under a fan all day Wednesday, I handed it over on time and it was suitably appreciated!

Specs
Yarn: Sheepaints Marisilk silk/seacell blend, from Socktopus
Pattern: Madli’s Shawl by Nancy Bush
Mods: I made it four pattern repeats wide for scarf size, and added the eyelet row to the edging which I saw somewhere on Rav and liked.

This was great yarn, and a great pattern and I would definitely make it again. In fact, it was so hard to give away that I’m considering doing another one just for me!

There has also been spinning:

This yarn is drying as we speak in this gorgeous breezy weather and I’m hoping to take it with me to Kew Gardens tomorrow on a picnic. MIL is visiting and since the weather is just about perfect we’re going to go and commune with flowers for the day.

Ciao!

I can’t get over this yarn. Squishy to begin with, it is even more so after plying and a nice bath. It stretches at least 15-20% of its length again, and springs back again, Sproing!

Sadly, It’s supposed to be a big, thick cosy hat and I really don’t think it’s going to be cold enough again to need it. (This would not be the first time I started a winter project in February and then shelved it cause it didn’t get finished in time. Or the second for that matter).

Fibre: Oceanwind Knits Merino, colour ‘Galvanized’ from Socktopus.
Spin style: Short forward draw with twist in the drafting zone, not smoothed down (pretty much my default no-think spinning method), 3-ply.
Yardage: Sorry, haven’t measured it yet - I will though.

- - - -

Yarn is not the only thing I’ve finished this week:

The last pair of Sock(topus) Club Socks were jinxed for me - I ripped back half a sock at one point because of a HUGE mistake that I failed to notice for about four hours of knitting. Then, I made them too short and had to rip out the toes and reknit them. Finally they’re done though - before the deadline, woot!

Pattern: Tear my Sole (with some adaptations) by Louisa Sisson
Yarn: Hazelknits Artisan Sock in ‘Sugar Maple’ (love love love this yarn!)

Last Tuesday I popped into Stash and took about 5 mins to fall deeply in love with the newly-in Malabrigo Silky Merino. It is luuurvely! Yarn bought to knit presents with doesn’t count, and luckily I managed to think up a very deserving friend so two skeins came home with me and I made this:

Pattern: Gretel, by Ysolda
Yarn: Malabrigo Silky Merino, 1.5 skeins (slouchy style), colour ‘Cloudy sky’
Made for: Stephanie (and I pinched her photo btw, I forgot to take any!)

Stephanie has cancer and although I only met her a couple of months ago, it feels like we’ve known each other forever. Stephanie’s take on the whole thing is so fresh, and funny and and endearing and I love that her blog posts are more likely to make me spurt coffee all over the computer than shed tears. Go read her blog and you’ll see what I mean, and have some kitchen towel handy for mopping up coffee. Oh, and don’t believe everything she says about me. I think it’s the meds talking :-P

- - - -

Second FO: I managed to cast off and block the shawl - always tricky over a weekend as Neil sleeps in too late. I must get me some of those jigsaw mat thingies for blocking on. I’m rather pleased with this :-D It’s a perfect size and I can see myself wearing it a lot.

Pattern: Flower Basket Shawl by Evelyn Clark
Yarn: Handspun Merino 2-ply, from Oceanwind Knits, via Socktopus, colour ‘Elderberry’
Made for: Mememe!

Next up? Hmmmm. Maybe finish one of the lurking wips? Doesn’t sound that much fun. I might get cracking on the Deep-V Argyle I think.

I learned a few things this past week:

- I get sick of chicken soup really quickly, no matter how good it is. However, the local deli (source of the good soup) also makes a completely rockin’ lasagne (mmmm…) which actually requires less effort to heat up and clean up after than the soup.
- It is far less boring to sleep 20 hours per day than to be wide awake but feeble.
- If you work for yourself, compared to teaching in a school, when you are sick no-one does your work for you while you’re away.
- Dishes and laundry don’t do themselves either :-(

Ok, maybe some of these I could have figured out anyway with a little common-sense. But small things seem big when you’re ill ya know.

On the upside, the feeble-o-metre dropped low enough yesterday to allow me to finish the Peacock Tail and Leaf Scarf which I cast on on Christmas Eve. The gorgeous handspun yarn was my Christmas gift from Kai, and it was a sheer delight to knit, not just in itself but also due to the love and care that went into it. Thank you so much sweetie!

and if you needed further proof of the glory and magic of blocking:

I left off the edging at each end, I like it, but I wanted to squeeze all the scarf I could out of this yarn and it was easier to just have a garter edge and knit till I ran out (I had 14 inches of yarn left - ugh!)

This is a great project, by one of my favourite designers. It was interesting enough that it never once felt repetative, simple enough to knit while semi-conscious and looks stunning.

And it’s all for me! The shawl pin, btw, was also a gift from Kai. It goes well, n’est-ce pas?