Author Archives: Kate

Looking Ahead

Thank you all for the lovely comments on the Eriksay Sweater. As I said in the last post, it made me realise that I do love knitting – and clearly need – something a bit more challenging. I am finishing up one last WIP (more on Wednesday) and then the backlog is clear and I can look forward to new projects.

I have joined a group on Ravelry with the aim to knit 12 things for myself in 2012 and have rashly started my list with six sweaters. This may change pretty soon! I am totally crap at knitting for myself, other than my annual winter hat, and I do want to change this. For some reason, I feel incredibly selfish spending my time doing things for me. I suppose knitting in itself is something for me as I enjoy doing it, so knitting AND knitting something for me seems positively greedy. :-P But just one sweater would be nice! I have also joined a couple of swaps so won’t be knitting entirely for myself next year, either, so maybe that will help absolve me of any guilt. ;-)

And for Rose, my first project for her will be Alice Starmore’s Secret Garden from The Children’s Collection:

because it’s been on my wishlist to knit since she was about six months old and I’ve been waiting and waiting for her to be big enough to fit into the smallest size. :-) It definitely meets the requirements of being a bit more challenging and shouldn’t end up in the corner because it’s too boring!

FO: Eriskay Sweater

Eriskay

Pattern: Eriskay Sweater by Debbie Bliss from Jaeger Handknits JHM001 (out of print)
Yarn: Patons UK Eco Cotton, 5 x 50g in colour: #00036 Ruby
Needles: 2½mm and 3mm circs (used flat except for the collar)

I love, love, LOVE this sweater. Cynically, I might say it’s because it’s taken six months to complete and it’s an achievement to get it out of the WIP pile. :-P

Eriskay

I think this pattern has shown me that I really do love an interesting knit and, while knitting simple garments gets them done more quickly (if I don’t get too bored with them), the sense of achievement isn’t nearly as great. Even though the pattern wasn’t charted, once I had got each panel set they were easy enough to memorise and read, even after leaving the pattern languishing for months.

Most of the modifications I did were to avoid seaming. I changed the shoulder seams to a three needle bind off, and attached the sleeves the same way, as I mentioned in Wednesday’s post. The collar was also knitted in the round. However, I do wish I’d changed the right-hand cable to twist in the other direction so that the cables were mirrored in the way that the lace panels were.

Eriskay

This is the 1 to 2 year size and Rose is maybe slightly small for her age. I know that Debbie Bliss’s children’s patterns are on the roomy side (or at least they used to be; maybe her newer designs are more fitted) and this sweater probably fits Rose the way it is meant to, but it is pretty bloomin’ baggy (good job I didn’t go for the bigger size!). :-D I have rolled the cuffs up now which helps, but I can see it fitting her for most of the next year as well. I did add a few extra rows on each sleeve just to complete a pattern repeat of the centre panel, but that doesn’t account for the couple of inches that hang over her fingers!

I only used five of the six balls of Eco Cotton that I bought. It does have a slightly better meterage than Jaeger Pure Cotton, the original yarn used in the pattern, which probably explains it. Not sure what to do with one random ball of sportweight cotton, but it’ll help feed my stash for a while. It was really nice yarn to knit with, gives great stitch definition and there were NO KNOTS in any of the balls I had.

Eriskay

The colour is perfect for Rose despite being pink, and as it’s a cotton sweater, will be good for layering as it gets colder. I suspect this will get a lot of wear over the coming months, which makes the wait to get it finished completely worthwhile. :-D

Countdown

It’s that time of year again when the panic sets in. Even if it’s not knitting-induced, I still find myself fretting about getting everything done in time for the Big Day.

But it’s also that time of year when there’s the diversion of the Drops Christmas Calendar. Maybe this year will be the one that I knit Rose a Santa hat. If not, there’s always the anticipation that they will somehow top last year’s cheese ribbon. :-P

WIP Wednesday

Eriskay almost at the finishing line

I think the above photo speaks for itself. :-D I have been utterly faithful to Eriskay for the past week and amazing progress has been made. The front was finished, front and backs joined, collar picked up and knitted, first sleeve knitted and attached and second sleeve about halfway done.

Months ago I mentioned that I was debating whether to knit the sleeves from the top down and there was a comment from Christine about attaching the sleeves using three needle bind-off – leaving the sleeve stitches live, picking up the same number of stitches along the edge of the body and binding them off together. I remembered this and decided to give it a go and it worked brilliantly!

So now there’s a tiny bit of knitting to go, a bit of seaming, some blocking and then finally – six months after it was started – this sweater will be done!

FO: Priscilla’s Tiny Dream Socks

Teeny Weeny Socks

Pattern: Priscilla’s Dream Socks by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, available in Favorite Socks and Interweave Knits, Fall 2000
Yarn: Angel Yarns Hand Dyed Sock Yarn, 28g (!) in colour: #12
Needles: 2.5mm circ, used Magic Loop style

I will blame Anna entirely for my new-found obsession with tiny socks. :-P As I said last week, I could happily knit tiny socks forever, just for the sense of achievement: when I actually sit down and knit them, they take pretty much no time at all to finish. However, this is actually only the second pair of socks I’ve knitted for Rose. I think I was put off by the Hugs and Kisses Socks because they were fiddly, on tiny needles and I was at the end of the “morning” sickness stage which had made me feel queasy just at the sight of yarn.

I knitted the pattern as written. It comes in a huge range of sizes, so once I’d Googled a shoe size converter to work out how big Rose’s feet were in US sizing, I was all set. :-) The only modification I did was to change to a standard toe, decrease down to 20 sts from 44 and then graft the toe stitches.

I don’t know why I was so surprised, but they only used 14g of yarn per sock. I have a ginormous bag of yarn oddments from the end of past socks, but chose to start a new ball of yarn from the stash, because I was worried I wouldn’t have enough yarn! Now I have gone through the bag, weighed some likely-looking balls and have enough yarn for a few more pairs, including some from the remains of my first ever socks, which I am really chuffed about. They will be a good project over the festive week, when I may need some calming, uncomplicated knitting to get me through it all. :-D

FO: Struan Hat the Second

Serious Hat

Pattern: Struan by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton-Ease, 1 x 100g in colour: Charcoal
Needles: 3.75mm dpns and circ

I snapped Henry before he left for school this morning, which I suppose explains the serious face!

I think I’ve said all I have to say about this pattern last year. :-) Its definitely a good option if you have a picky teenage boy to knit for, although I hope next year that he will want something different!

I love Cotton-Ease. The crispness of the stitch definition is wonderful, and it’s soft as well. I don’t know how it stands up to being used for sewing seams as there weren’t any with the hat, but it feels more tightly twisted together than All Seasons Cotton and maybe therefore less likely to untwist, which is what irritates me.

I’m spending the weekend working on Eriskay and having a lot of baths now that it’s finally been plumbed in. Have a good and fragrant weekend, what ever you’re doing!

WIP Wednesday

The bathroom is still very much a WIP, but things are slowly getting a little less all-over-the-place around here. Struan is done and blocking; I managed to find the remains of the plastic mesh I used for the previous incarnation of said hat, so all that’s left to do is a FO post!

So in the meantime I have started Rose’s second tiny sock:

Tiny sock

I wish Mr B’s feet were this small! This is the result of about an hour or so’s knitting yesterday evening. I could absolutely knit tiny socks forevermore, but it would completely ruin my ability to knit mansize socks; they’re at the cusp of the boredom threshold as it is.

I’m reckoning on this sock being done today, then the remaining hat tomorrow and then I can dig out Eriskay. I have almost decided on definitely frogging the Honeycomb Vest I started for myself. After the festive period is over, I want to start something else for myself, and it’ll just bother me if I have to finish this first. Besides, it’ll mean I’ll have magically acquired two cardigans-worth of yarn for Rose. :-D

Baking Monday

Christmas Cake

I haven’t made a Christmas cake since 2008, so this year I decided it was time I got back into the habit. :-D

The recipe is available here – a new one for me, and I hope that it tastes okay. Although every fruit cake is improved with a bit of feeding! And I am stealing Delia’s decoration ideas:

I am much cheered by the fact that she only decorates the top of the cake. Hers by design, mine because of laziness, but the end result is the same. :-P

Another Random Friday

Motivational, get-the-bathroom-finished cake for MrB:

Marbled Chocolate and Banana Bread
Marbled Banana Bread, recipe available here

And new old patterns for me:

I had a copy of this Sirdar pattern book when it was new, eleven years ago, and came across it again a week or so ago, whilst looking for patterns to queue innocently browsing Ravelry. After finding this copy on eBay and waiting for ages for the auction to end, it was mine once more. :-D

I’m not sure why I didn’t hang on to it like I have done with other pattern books, but the designs are mainly aimed at girls so I suppose that explains it. I remember knitting this hat for Oscar, though:

because it was the first time I ever did any crochet. The edging at the bottom is all double crochet, which is added on after the back seam is sewn (yes, I know…). I think it was a Debbie Bliss How To Knit book that taught me to do a crochet edging (which is still a lot easier for me than starting crochet from scratch) and in the end I knitted a couple of them, whilst very pregnant and hot and uncomfortable. Unfortunately, this was in 2000 when I didn’t have a blog and didn’t randomly take photos of my knitted things. How times have changed. ;-)

There are several patterns in the book which I’d love to knit for Rose, so hopefully this time round I’ll get more than a couple of hats finished!

WIP Wednesday – Not Knitted Edition

Nothing knitted to show you this week. Struan still looks much the same, as I have been a bit distracted with a rather large, un-woolly WIP that is happening here:

A Big WIP

Our new bathroom is finally beginning to take shape, which means no more pink bathroom suite, but currently no bath. I can’t wait until it is done, that is all. :-D

FO: Manly Christmas Socks 2011

Manly Christmas Socks 2011

Pattern: My own
Yarn: Waterloo Wools Carleton, 1 x 100g in colour: “Fisherman’s Bastion”
Needles: Titchy 2mm circs used Magic Loop style

*points to calendar*

Look, everyone! Look! It’s 14th November and my festive knitting is DONE.

*oozes smugness*

Admittedly, when you set the bar as low as I have done, getting it done isn’t really much of an achievement! I may knit something else yet, but I don’t have the right yarn colours in my stash, so it may not happen.

Nothing much to say about the socks, which are fairly plain and were good, mindless knitting. The pattern was cobbled together using little bits of other patterns and techniques. Namely, Judy’s Magic Cast On for the toes, then Priscilla Gibson Roberts’ Short-Row Heel and then a stretchy lace cast off for the ribbing. It made a change from top-down socks and when you’re knitting inches and inches of tiny stitches, any change is welcome!

The yarn was really nice to knit with and it’s good to make a dent in my manly sock yarn stash. Somehow I have accumulated even more manly colours without realising and I am so behind on knitting socks for MrB – this is the first new pair he’s had since LAST Christmas! – that at this rate, I’ll still be using it up when Rose has started going to school… though it’s MrB’s birthday at the end of January, so I’m hoping to get another pair done by then. :-D

Now back to the hat knitting!

Goodies

I realised yesterday that I hadn’t posted about my own swap scarf. A few weeks back, I posted the photos of the scarf I knitted for my partner in the International Scarf Swap on Ravelry, and last week I received my own parcel of goodies. :-)

Liesel

I have a lovely soft PURPLE cotton Liesel, as well as some new additions to my stash: some Queensland Collection Sugar Rush and Interlacements Irish Linen:

Queensland Sugar Rush & Interlacements Irish Linen

so that’s me sorted for scarf/shawl knitting for a while. :-D

WIP Wednesday

A bit of new stuff and a bit of old stuff this week. :-) I have started on Henry’s Struan hat, using Lion Brand Cotton-Ease. It’s very much like knitting with Rowan All Seasons Cotton (Rowan have this listed as a spring/summer yarn, which surely belies its name?!). Not the most perfect yarn for working cables as it doesn’t have that much stretch, but the stitch definition is great. You’ll have to take my word for this, though, because the colour isn’t great for photography purposes!

Tiny Hat

I have been a bit unfaithful to the hat though, with Mr B’s festive socks. I had a very lazy Sunday watching TV and it was the perfect mindless project to keep my hands away from the biscuit tin! I’m about halfway up the leg now so will probably have these done by the weekend and will feel virtuous that my festive knitting is done…

Manly Sock

…however, I do have the urge to knit a little something for my little sister’s Christmas stocking. It just depends how I get on with the boys’ hats. Oscar still hasn’t chosen a design he likes and he’s away on a school trip this week so I can’t even pin him down to make a decision. He has his priorities all wrong. :-P

FO: Podster Gloves

Podster Gloves

Pattern: Podster Gloves by Glenna C
Yarn: Rowan Cashsoft 4ply, 1 x 50g in colour: #422 and a tiny bit in colour: #433 and Rowan Pure Wool 4ply, a smidgen of 50g in colour: #436
Needles: 2.5mm circs

An entire pair of mitts done! It seems the answer to me actually finishing a pair is to make them as simple as possible. :-P I am so tempted to get out all my mitten pattern books and drool over them, but I know that will lead to the road to ruin, startitis and no finished festive socks!

The pattern was very simple to follow, even for a glove knitting novice. The huge amount of ribbing for the cuffs was a PITA, but it was worth it to ensure warm wrists. I did find the order that the stitches were picked up for fingers a bit counter-intuitive, after following the directions to the letter for the first couple because I was terrified of doing it wrong. So I just did my own thing after that and nothing bad happened! I also added buttons to hold the flaps down on Henry’s request, and I might move them down to the ribbing, if I can sew them down without stopping it stretching. They’re too high up really at the moment. Also my button loops are a bit rubbish.

BTW, the pattern isn’t available at the time of writing this. The pattern notes say the pattern has been updated, so I guess it’s just a temporary glitch. Pattern is back up!

Podster Gloves

The colour selection was Henry’s, so I just picked yarn oddments from my stash that matched. He wanted white stripes, but I showed him the cream Cashsoft 4ply and he didn’t object. :-) I have so many oddments – of 4ply yarn especially – that I can’t really put for trade but are too big to just bin (I hate throwing away even the titchiest oddments of yarn which is probably part of the problem!). I always feel virtuous when I can avoid buying yarn for a project, totally ignoring the fact that I have already spent the money on the yarn to have it in my stash, so it’s not as if I got it for free..!

I’d definitely knit these again, though maybe not this year. I didn’t really suffer from second mitt syndrome but I don’t want to tempt fate. :-P

FO: Sirdar 1952

Rose in Sirdar 1952

Pattern: Sirdar 1952
Yarn: Jarol Heritage DK, 2 x 100g balls in colour: #102 (I think)
Needles: 3¼ and 4mm circs, used flat (except for the armholes)

And on a really very wet and miserable day, having a snug new waistcoat to wear is perfect. :-) I actually sewed in the last end and blocked it last week, but with waiting for it to dry and then more waiting for buttons, the reveal got a bit delayed.

I love the finished result. The stitch pattern gives a lovely texture to the yarn and the styling is very simple but cute. I can’t say I enjoyed knitting the stitch pattern, though. It wasn’t hard, but needed concentration on every couple of rows and so wasn’t mindless either. By the second front, I was pretty much forcing myself to sit down and knit it. What saved the whole thing from being stuffed in a bag and hidden in a corner was the fact that I was knitting the waistcoat and therefore didn’t have two sleeves full of pattern to knit as well. :-)

I followed the pattern completely as written, even managing to pick up enough stitches for the collar and button bands. I did toy with the idea of only working two or three buttonholes at the top, but went with all six, which I slightly regretted when I went to buy buttons.

One modification I did do was to sew up the side seams and leave a gap for the armholes, then pick up and knit the ribbing around the armhole in the round, which just meant picking up a couple fewer stitches to ensure the ribbing worked.

Sirdar 1952

I wasn’t sure what sort of buttons to go for at first. I was thinking about dark wooden ones, but then saw these adorable heart-shaped metal buttons here and they clearly were perfect:

Sirdar 1952

My only niggle is that they came in packs of five, so I had to cough up for two lots. But it also means I have four cute buttons for something else…

The yarn worked well for the pattern, and it was good to use up more stash rather than buy even more yarn! Rose is showing a preference for red things at the moment, so I am going to encourage this. ;-)

And finally, this year I have knitted (and plan to knit) more Sirdar patterns than I have in all the years I’ve been knitting. I was always unreasonably (as it turns out) sniffy about their patterns in the past, because of the fact they were knitted flat (and didn’t have any charts, which does still bug me a bit). Once I had discovered circular knitting I felt that clearly this was superior to any other method and seams were for mad people. ;-) But after knitting so many top-down raglans, I think I needed a change and I was ignoring so many cute and interesting patterns. And seaming isn’t so bad once you’ve done a few projects. I’ll be knitting chart-less Shetland lace shawls before you know it! :-P

WIP Wednesday

More mitten/glove photos today, I’m afraid. Rose’s waistcoat is all done, so there will be a proper FO post to follow. And although I was planning to finish MrB’s socks after the waistcoat was done, I figured that gloves and hats for the boys would be needed before December, so they’ve queue-jumped. :-D

The second mitten/glove is progressing really quickly:

Second Glove

I am genuinely amazed at how quickly they are working up. I suppose that all my other mitten endeavours have been stranded and that’s given me a less optimistic outlook on how long these things take. :-) But these are just whizzing along. Even the ribbing on the second mitten didn’t take so long. I am on the horrible, finger-picking-up bit now, but then I have the nice mindless flappy top thing to do after that.

Second Glove

I hate the holes that are appearing when I pick up the stitches, though. I have tried to close them by pulling on some of the loose stitches and knitting them together with a regular stitch, but I suspect I will never be totally happy with them because I am anal a perfectionist. In the comments on the last post, Soo mentioned The Rainey Sisters’ Glove Guide which apparently has tips on knitting fingers and such, so maybe if this isn’t going to be my last pair of gloves ever, I will invest in a copy. ;-) I do have to say that Magic Loop completely wins over dpns for the fingers any day. Despite being a longer needle, it’s much easier to manipulate the tiny number of stitches on two needles rather than on three or four.

As an aside which is probably of no interest to anyone but me, I seem to be knitting more tightly of late. I hadn’t swatched for anything for a while and then for both Rose’s waistcoat and these gloves, I had to go up a needle size because I had too many stitches, which is very unusual. Said it wasn’t interesting! But I wish I knew why it was happening.

Anyway, I’m hoping to have these done and blocking by the weekend, so that I can start on Henry’s Struan and the hunt for the remains of the plastic mesh from when I made the last one..!

Fingers

I mentioned on Wednesday that I had somehow been persuaded to knit some gloves. I have resisted glove knitting forever because I couldn’t see the point when a) gloves are cheap and warm from the shops and b) picking up the stitches for each individual finger is clearly some form of torture.

But Henry wanted some convertible gloves. The type with short fingers and a flap over the top. He also wanted them to be mainly black, with red and white stripes on the hand, a combination I completely failed to find in any shop because it was so absolutely specific!

Fortunately, I do have lots of oddments of yarn in the right colours, so I plumped for the Podster Gloves pattern by Glenna C, because it was the first one I came across that used the right weight of yarn, was free and cute. :-D

Mitts

Despite the 3½ inches of k1, p1 ribbing for the cuff, the rest of the first mitt went quite quickly and I finished it in a few days. Have cast on for the second mitt, so hopefully the pair will be done by the end of the week.

Mitts

Henry approves, which is the main thing, although I can’t help feeling that the colour scheme looks a bit familiar…

Nope, can’t think why! ;-)

Wonky Birthday Cake

Lemon Cake
Lemon Cake, recipe available here

Oscar is 11 today, and requested a lemon birthday cake, not a squidgy, chocolately explosion of calories that his brother would have picked. :-D

I am trying very hard not to feel ancient, even when I had to sort out his secondary school application this week, ready for him joining Henry at Big School in September next year. Ah well, they were small once…

*is evil parent* ;-)

WIP Wednesday

True to my word, I have been totally monogamous this week and worked solely on Rose’s waistcoat. Progress hasn’t been that quick because it’s been a real effort to actually sit down and knit it. The problem is that the pattern isn’t quite mindless enough to knit without looking while watching TV, but also isn’t intricate enough to be interesting and a challenge.

In the end, I had to have stern words and force myself to sit down and knit the right front, which is the end of having to knit the pattern itself.

Almost a waistcoat

Now I just have lots and lots of ribbing to complete. :-) The collar was completed in an evening, and I now have the front bands and armhole ribbing to do.

Collar finished

I will probably sew up the side seams and then work the armhole ribbing in the round, rather than knit it flat and then seam. Other than that I am sticking to the pattern, although I may give up trying to pick up enough stitches for the button bands. I find that all these Sirdar patterns require picking up a crazy number of stitches – I posted before about giving up on the collar on Rose’s bobble vine cardigan because I just couldn’t pick up enough stitches and after about the millionth attempt, it was getting a little frustrating. ;-)

I am very much looking forward to finishing this now, because a) there are still a lot of other projects to be completed and b) I may have promised to make Henry some gloves as well as a hat…

Not Knitworthy

funny pictures - They watch and they wait....

Just Call Me “Ms Organised”

So after my confessional WIP-W post, I set about organising my knitting.

Firstly, I frogged the scarf and bought Rose one instead. I certainly don’t need any more mindless projects when I have a giant sock on the go! If I want to knit one at a later date, it’ll be something that actually looks like it’s been handmade, rather than a strip of navy blue fabric which doesn’t scream “hours of knitting” to anyone. :-P

Next, I got cracking on the waistcoat. I have finally finished the back and am halfway up the left front. I changed from using bamboo circs to Addi lace circs, and the difference is amazing. The stitches slip along the needles much faster and they’re nice and pointy for poking into the row below on every fourth pattern row.

After that’s done, the Christmas socks will get finished, then Rose’s second sock, her umpteenth hat, then Henry’s Struan and a hat for Oscar (still undecided). And then (!) either my Honeycomb or Rose’s Eriskay which has been languishing for ages now and I am slightly worried that I won’t have a clue where I am on the pattern..!

I also set about sorting my Ravelry queue. Rearranging previously queued items apparently makes it look like I have actually newly-queued them (thanks, rubbishknitter!) but I deleted A LOT of patterns. Honest! I first realised that I might have a queueing problem when on at least two occasions I saw someone’s FO or saw a pattern advertised, thought “oh, that’s nice, I’ll queue it,” went to the pattern page and discovered that I already had…

So nothing new is going to be added to the queue. I will favourite stuff instead. :-P I still need to weed out a lot of patterns that I really won’t knit, and priority for knitting is now given to those patterns I already own or are free.

I’ve alluded to my pattern buying binges on here before, but I think the full enormity of how many pattens I now own can’t be expressed without me taking a photo, and I’m too much of a coward to do that. :-) The problem started when I was stuck on a chair with a baby superglued to me, unable to do shift to do anything other than watch daytime TV (can’t move to put on a DVD) or the internet. So rather than gouge my eyes out, I ended up looking at knitting patterns. Though there were many days when I couldn’t even find a spare five minutes to get dressed, at the same time I had a fervent belief that I would knit myself fifteen cardigans in six months and furnish all my friends-and-relations with personalised scarf and mitten sets for Christmas, knit Rose a complete wardrobe of sweaters, knit MrB eight pairs of socks for his birthday, etc, etc..!

It made sense at the time, in my sleep-deprived state, because I was clearly on another planet. And sometimes I ended up doing nothing at all because of the pressure to knit all these things! So, being realistic about what I can do is important to me. Getting bouts of startitis isn’t helpful and having too many projects OTN just makes me want to spend hours avoiding knitting.

So, boringly organised is the way ahead. And at least then I won’t have to buy more needles to fit all the projects onto. :-)

WIP Wednesday – Startitis Edition

Toe

Tiny Socks

Scarf

Um, yes… I am having a bit of trouble concentrating on one project at the moment. I’m not starting anything big, but just lots of small things that never get done. I finished the first Manly Christmas Sock (hurrah!), got cracking on the second and then I saw the adorable wee knitted baby socks on Anna’s blog and got the sudden urge to knit some socks for Rose. The only socks I’ve ever knitted her were the Hugs and Kisses Baby Socks, which are far too small now, obviously. So I dug out the Priscilla’s Dream Socks pattern, worked out how many stitches to cast on thanks to the internet (the sizes are all US shoe sizing, although there’s not much difference really: a UK 6 child is a US 7) and got knitting. Or at least until the first one was done and then I realised that Rose really needed a scarf to go with her winter coat and started knitting the most boring strip of moss stitch known to humankind.

So lots of bits and pieces, lots already on the needles and I am being tempted by even more new patterns. I need a clear plan of action, I think, and to avoid all places where I might see new tempting stuff that will distract me from what I already am working on. So if you spot me queueing anything on Ravelry, feel free to poke me with something sharp and pointy! ;-)

Random Friday

It is cold! I wore my new winter hat today for the first time and was snug. Rose, with her selection of hats, went for Queenie. I think the ducks approved of being fed by such splendid hat wearing people.


(May not be actual duck met this morning, but he does look cheerful.)

Being female apparently means you are designated as the Finding Fairy of the house. But if I don’t know where something is, standing there looking agitated at me doesn’t mean I will magically pull your PE kit out of thin air, eldest son. :-P

All that talk of gift knitting has given me ideas about the dozens of other things I could also knit.

I may therefore have cast on a shawl last night.

And frogged it this morning.

And printed off another pattern which I believed was less challenging but on closer inspection contains patterning on the wrong side.

I am drinking tea instead.

Have a good weekend, everyone! :-D

WIP Wednesday

It’s time I broached the subject of *pauses* Festive Knitting. There, I said it. :-D In recent years I have scaled down hugely the number of things I knit but yet still I feel slightly panicked that I won’t get it all done in time.

So I started early this year on Mr B’s annual socks. All his knitted socks are now more hole than sock, and I obviously haven’t been keeping up with demand as at one point he had five or six pairs in regular, hole-free, use. I had hoped to knit a few pairs for his Christmas present as I have several skeins of manly sock yarn to be used up in my stash. But so far, I have just about completed one:

Manly sock

The yarn is Waterloo Wools Carleton in “Fisherman’s Bastion”, which was the May 2010 Sock Club yarn. Very manly colours indeed. He will definitely approve. :-D I’m knitting this pair toe-up just for a change, still using my Ultimate Manly Sock pattern, but with the advantage that I can use Judy’s Magic Cast On and not have to do any grafting at the end. But big, UK size 11 (US 11½, I think) socks on 2mm needles – even mindless ones without any pattern – take a long time to knit. One pair will be an achievement in itself!

I have also started another Rose thing, completely ignoring the fact that I have plenty to be getting on with already. I have been doing very well with non-impulsive pattern buying lately, because the number of patterns I have bought over the past year or so doesn’t bear thinking about. A combination of having lots of time where I couldn’t do much but sit and surf, and the instant gratification of pdfs was just too much. :-) So I have sworn off buying patterns until I am ready to knit them. This is proving to be harder than I thought as evidenced by the fact I am now knitting a new pattern… :-P

Another small person's thing

I was waiting to buy Sirdar 1268 when it was available online from somewhere that didn’t charge a stupid amount of postage for a piece of paper. And then Sirdar 1952 appeared in my friends’ activity on Ravelry, I queued it, Googled it and found it on eBay with free postage and it was mine. :-D I have justified this by telling myself that Rose doesn’t have any waistcoats so it’s filling a gap in her wardrobe. :-P

The yarn is Jarol Heritage DK – the same yarn from my fated Baby Bog Jacket of last year. I never did re-knit it after frogging the over-wide sleeves, so the yarn is being repurposed. Unfortunately, the pattern is proving as tedious as knitting plain socks, so I am changing between the two projects at the moment and probably not achieving much progress either way. Hopefully my motivation will kick in and I’ll be a finishing fiend once again!

FO: Mayrose Hat

Mayrose

Pattern: Mayrose by Woolly Wormhead
Yarn: Sirdar Supersoft Aran, 1 x 100g in colour: #898
Needles: 4mm circs and dpns

And now I finally have a hat. :-) It’s not what I started out wanting to knit, but I do like it very much.

The pattern was very simple to knit, and didn’t cause a headache like my own hat attempts had done in the previous week. I used a heavier yarn than specified in the pattern and although my stitch tension was fine, I had far fewer rows to the inch. I stopped knitting after four repeats (I think) before working the decreases and the fit is perfect; just a little on the slouchy side, which is what I like.

Mayrose

I chose the yarn mainly because it matched the yarn I used for Bitterroot so nicely. But it knitted up nicely, is soft and feels very cosy. So I’m all set for the winter, but will definitely be knitting myself at least one more hat because with my track record, I am probably going to lose this one. At least I managed to get a FO post before it vanished. :-P