It’s that time of year again. There are the good bits, like buying new pencil cases and pencils and stationery goodies (I suspect I enjoy this part rather more than the boys do). And then the rubbish bits, such as the realisation that last term’s PE kit is too small on the day before school starts and the tedium of sewing on eleventy billion nametapes. One small person is back, one to go tomorrow and then maybe I can think straight for five minutes and share some knitting with you all.

Still bogging along, with the Baby Bog Jacket now looking rather like a knitted superhero cape. The interesting cream stripes are from the thumb trick, which many of us will have most likely come across before when knitting a pair of Fetchings. You knit across the stitches with a length of scrap yarn, slip them back to the left-hand needle and knit across them again with the working yarn. When the scrap yarn is removed at the end of the knitting, you’re left with two rows of live stitches. In this case, for grafting together the fronts and sleeves of the jacket.

Reaching this point is a relief as there were times I did wonder what on earth I was doing knitting row upon row of garter stitch. Mindless knitting changed to “hmmm, this is beginning to get a bit tedious” at around ridge 18. By ridge 28 I was speculating that the reason there are relatively few Baby Bogs on Ravelry is that many knitters expired of boredom before they finished the wretched thing. But then hurrah for Sense and Sensibility on DVD on Saturday night, the boys entertaining their sister while I admired bonnets and me knitting a good 30 rows uninterrupted.

Yesterday I reached the wonderful decreasing row and now have only 100 stitches to contend with, plus the interest of the shaping for the armhole. The sleeves are all knitted as part of this garment, but there are directions for adding slipped stitches to mimic a seam and some increasing and decreasing to help with the fit. I think I may actually get this finished and not have KILLED BY GARTER STITCH BOREDOM on my gravestone after all.

(Please excuse the supremely crappy photo. It’s raining hard here today and the light is terrible.)

Although the little Offset Wraplan has stalled somewhat – I need to re-knit the one sleeve I’ve done because I think my picking up around the armhole is shoddy and it will bother me if I don’t fix it – I’m looking ahead to when it’s all done and I get to play with animal shapes for the appliqué.

I ordered some wool felt from Blooming Felt in Orange Sherbet and Banana Popsicle. I want to keep this garment as neutral and unisex as possible, and had in mind that a peachy/apricot sort of colour would work well with the green. However, I think the yellow actually looks better. And of course it’s now crying out to be decorated with a little duckling!

I’ve never embroidered anything in my entire life so am a but anxious about how it’ll turn out. I may need some virtual hand holding.

As I said earlier in the week, my small celebration of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s centenary was to re-read Knitting Around. In the book, her designs are interspersed with her “digressions” which in this case form her autobiography and it’s fascinating reading.

An evening of reading got to me the Bog Jacket, which reminded me that I had the Baby Bog queued last year but for some reason didn’t actually knit it. Perhaps because I’d already knitted a lot of garter stitch while making the Tomten, or I didn’t have the right yarn to hand. But it was deleted from my queue and I never made one.

So with some DK yarn to hand, I figured it was about time I made one, if only as a celebration of EZ’s centenary. The yarn is Jarol Heritage DK which is my favourite new discovery. It’s a wool/acrylic blend with 55% wool and is wondrously soft. Interestingly, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK is also just 55% wool. And something like four times the price.

The baby bog pattern has a tension of 6 stitches per inch, which translates to a 16 inch chest. My tension is roughly 4½ to 5 spi, which should give a finished chest of 20 to 22 inches. And the beauty of the pattern is that the length will increase proportionately as it’s the number of ridges of garter stitch that matters, not how many inches you knit. Unfortunately, I have approximately another 60 rows of 160 stitches for the pouffy skirt to go before I can decrease down. But it’s wondrously mindless knitting and the construction is fascinating. More about that when I have progressed further.

So although my plan for the Willie cardigan was to buy some lovely chunky yarn from Texere, when Mr B brought home the splendid bag of American yarn and it contained two plain-coloured skeins of Lamb’s Pride Bulky, I decided to see if it would work. I am getting stitch tension perfectly, but too few rows to the inch which isn’t that much of a problem. However, I still have to buy some brown and another contrasting colour, so it’s swings and roundabouts. It’ll cost almost as much to buy two more skeins of Lamb’s Pride as it would to buy all the Texere yarn. And I did sort of have my heart set on the turquoise. I think I’ll leave this one to ferment for a while until I’ve made up my mind.

But before I could even start a swatch and have a Willie colour crisis, I needed to buy needles, which is rare enough that it warrants a blog post. I have a ridiculous number of circular needles in various lengths, but nothing between 4.5mm and 6mm. I just don’t knit with needles that size as I rarely use any yarn above DK weight and as a loose knitter, I generally need smaller needles anyway.

So I had to bite the bullet and buy some needles in a couple of sizes because I had no idea what my tension would be. I would have probably bought some Inox/Prym metal circs as they’re my favourite cheap and cheerful needle. Until I found these on eBay:

Bamboo circs for £1.99 a set. Now initially I was pretty sceptical that they’d be any good, but the miser in me won the day and I ordered a couple of sizes. And you know, they’re not bad at all. The join between the needle and cord is smooth and the needles don’t have any rough bits. Will be interesting to see how they fare over time compared to the Addi bamboo circs I have. I will keep you updated. In the meantime, purple or turquoise Willie?

Rather than spend ages cutting up bits of paper for the draw, I went to random.org and used a random number generator to pick the winners. I temporarily removed all comments that were duplicates or ineligible comments about cakes (promise I’ll get back to you about that, Marji!) and was left with 20 comments, the first being the oldest and the last being the most recent.

Then I just clicked the Generate! button and found the winners.

First was Linz, who has selected the Eyelets and Lace Harmony Guide.

Second was Snoopydog who will shortly be receiving two balls of Artesano Inca Cloud in Dusky Burgundy.

Third was rubbishknitter who chose the brilliant Knitter’s Almanac.

And finally, fourth was LizzieK8 who’ll be getting the Susan Bates sock needle set!

Enjoy your prizes!

Today marks the centenary of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s birth. This evening I will be re-reading Knitting Around in my own small celebration of this wonderful woman. Anyone who doesn’t have a knitting grandmother should adopt her as their guide to all that is woolly. And even if you do, there’s always room for one more.

Thank you all for your entries into my blogiversary competition. Comments are now closed and I have emailed the winners, so check your inboxes! If I wanted a way to give me a swollen head, this competition was it. I loved reading the comments and knowing that my erratic and bumbling blog is something that many people actually like to read. Next time I feel like deleting it all and going off and being aloof, I will just read them all again.

This weekend I have mainly been knitting a baby cardigan,

starting a new pair of socks for Mr B, possibly his Christmas socks if they take as long as the last pair,

and deciding what to knit next. I think it might be time to get my Willie out.

Until a few years ago, I only ever cast on and off using the same methods I’d used since I learnt to knit. It never occurred to me that there were other, better, ways to do either. When I first tried long-tail cast on, it was almost as if I’d discovered the key to the meaning of life.

I’ve found new ways to cast off as well, like the wonderfully stretchy way to cast off for the edges of shawls. But I’d always wanted to find a neater way to cast off for ribbing. Montse Stanley states that tubular is the best and though I wouldn’t argue with her (she scares me too much), I just couldn’t get my head around how it worked from the confusing drawings in her book.

So today I tried Googling to see what I found, and stumbled across savannahchik‘s blog. And then I had the wonderful lightbulb moment. It’s GRAFTING and I am an idiot. Armed with this knowledge, I did what Montse suggests for stupid people like me and separated the knit stitches and purl stitches – the knits all on the front needle and the purls on the back – so it was just as if I was about to graft a sock toe, and began casting off in a tubular fashion. I fear it’s a bit bumpy, but hope it blocks out neatly because I think it’ll be a winner. No obvious line of stitches for the cast off and it’s very stretchy.

BTW, the ribbing is the bottom edge of the body of an Offset Wraplan which I am knitting as a baby gift for one of my sister’s schoolfriends. As she isn’t a knitter, I don’t suppose she’ll even notice the type of cast off, but at least I’m getting to try new techniques.

Today my blog is five years old. That’s half a decade of wittering on insightful posts about knitting, yarn and whatever else I decide to write about. When I started this blog I was a pretty basic knitter. I’d just discovered sock knitting, but still had the delights of stranded knitting, lace, steeking and other new skills to come. And who knows what I’ll have achieved by the time the sixth blogiversary comes around?

To celebrate, I’m holding a little competition. The prizes I’ve chosen are things that I love and have some significance to me and my knitting career so far. There’s a choice of:

Two skeins of Artesano Alpaca Inca Cloud in a colour of your choice. This was the first alpaca yarn I ever used and got me addicted to knitting with the stuff, dammit.

A copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitters Almanac. I’ve already made it clear how much I love this book and think everyone should have a copy. So I’m encouraging this by having one as a prize.

A set of Susan Bates Sock Needles. Four sets of five in sizes 1.5mm, 1.75mm, 2.0mm and 2.25mm. My absolute favourite dpns. Slippery, lightweight and each set is a different colour so they look pretty are easy to tell apart.

A copy of one of the updated Harmony Guides. I have a set of the old ones from the 1980s that I bought second hand and they’re just brilliant and have served me well. As they’ve now been revamped, I’ll leave the choice of book to the winner.

To win one of these prizes, just post a comment below saying what you think of my blog or to describe it in just five words. I reserve the right to delete any obscene posts. Choice of prizes will go to the first person drawn from the hat, then the second and so on. Closing date is Sunday, 8th August around teatime, so plenty of time to enter!

The stripy blue thing is currently blocking and I am in a quandary. Firstly, I should actually mention what on earth it is I am knitting! The pattern is the Little Coffee Bean Cardigan. After Mr B presented me with various balls of yarn the other week, it was clearly the perfect pattern to make stripes with. It’s a lovely design and I will write more about it in the FO post.

However, the problem is that I have buttons: 22mm or seven-eighths of an inch, as specified in the pattern. But I think they are too big. I like the idea of chunky buttons, but are these the wrong side of chunkiness? *ponders* It stands to reason that the buttons are letting me down yet again. I would sell my grandmother for a lovely button shop within decent travelling distance from my house where I could actually see how the buttons look held against the garment before I buy.

They haven’t been sewn on yet, anyway, so there’s no problem with changing my mind. Which I am 99% likely to do, as I don’t think they’ll fit through the buttonholes, either…

Something blue…

Something green…

Something stripey…

Something not.

Thank you all for your suggestions on what to knit with the Wollmeise yarn. It was fun reading through them and deciding which one to pick. In the end I was very tempted by Aberdonian’s heartfelt plea but decided to go with josiekitten‘s suggestion as it’s a subject I care very much about and I like the idea of bright orange Wollmeise socks wandering the world.

Josiekitten: please email me with your address and I’ll pop the yarn in the post to you. Absy: I have a very small skein of blue Wollmeise left over from my Swallowtail shawl. It’s not orange (obviously) but if you email me your address as well, you can have it to squish and knit something very small.

You know those days where nothing goes right and as the day goes on, everything just accumulates until it’s just a whole heap of rubbishness and you wish you’d just decided to stay in bed instead?

Rose was grumpy. I was grumpy. Nothing exciting was planned for the day except a date with the washing machine and a pile of dirty plates to wash up. Rose got grumpier and refused to have a nap and I gradually ate my way through all the chocolate biscuits in the house. And then possibly went to the shop to buy more…

I decided to cheer myself up by winding up some yarn. In this case, some lovely handspun laceweight yarn that was a present from Kai.

So, grumpy baby, grumpy parent, laceweight yarn… what could possibly go wrong?! While glossing over the finer points of what happened, I ended up with a pile of tangled yarn and a broken swift.

When Mr B came home, I bemoaned the now lack of swiftness due, possibly in part, to me (but only slightly). Much as I’d love a stylish wooden swift that doubles as a table decoration, they’re not cheap and I foresaw a lot of small people being coerced into skein holding duties.

Until the next morning when I found this sitting by my bed:

My lovely husband had got up at 5am and, before he drove off into the dawn to another day of doing whatever he does, had glued together my poor, broken swift. It now turns with a slight wobble which I think gives it character. But more importantly, I can wind yarn again. Although never again when I am in anything less than the happiest of moods.

I saw an advert for AK Traditions’ Huggable Friends in a back issue of The Knitter and fell in love. Having only had two boys before, I’m not really “up” on girls’ toys, and at the tender age of almost-nine months, I don’t expect Rose cares one way or t’other about the toys she plays with other than they’re fun and keep her occupied for a few minutes. But seeing the advert made me realise that her mother she needs a dolly.

A quick Google led me to The Knitting Parlour as a stockist of the booklet (and with free postage!). It arrived after a couple of days, wrapped in purple tissue paper which now makes me a customer for life.

I bought the book mainly for the doll I saw in the advert, Abbey:

who has fantastic auburn plaits which I greatly envy – I’ve been dyeing my hair red since I was about sixteen because I’d love to have it that colour naturally – but the other patterns are also gorgeous, including Finn who looks handsome in a traditional guernsey sweater and my namesake:

who even wears a purple hat.

Now I just need the pattern to knit itself and I’m sorted..!

I fear this might be a recurring theme for the next week…

1. Prairie Rose Shawl looking much the same as it did a week ago? Check.
2. Manly sock not touched at all? Check.
3. Pattern testing for Marina still ongoing? Check.
4. Grumpy baby with TWO NEW TEETH permanently attached to me (baby, that is, not the teeth!), meaning that I can’t do anything about the first two? Check.

Well, for anyone suffering in the heat on Monday, the weather yesterday and today must’ve been a huge relief. For anyone who hates the cold: sorry, but I am SO much happier. I can actually function again and not sit like a limp rag on the sofa waiting to melt.

I haven’t done a huge amount of knitting in the past few days, but I have a manly sock done:

and the other one is just past the ribbing, so expect a FO post around July.

I have written up the Marina shawl pattern and it is now starting the process of being test knitted by several people, which is a new experience for me and will mean that the pattern is guaranteed to be more error free than it would be otherwise (not going to say 100% error free as I am not a fool!), though it does mean that it’ll be another couple of weeks before it’s available.

And I haven’t even got to posting about the shawl exchange! More on that in the next post. Right now, a small person is stirring from their nap..!

There isn’t a cloud in the sky today and it’s unbearably hot. Because, of course, after complaining about the cold and rain of the past few weeks, as soon as a bit of sunshine appears, it’s time to start complaining about *that*.

So no knitting for me today. Rose and I are sitting in the shade until it cools down and we can go into the garden.

I think I’ve said a few times that with certain techniques it’s a matter of finding a pattern that you have to knit to give you the impetus to try it out. Crochet being one, and also my other nemesis, intarsia. Even typing the word makes me feel slightly faint.

Well, dear readers, I have found The Project. The one that will get me using bobbins and other such fandangles.

Willie by Pamela Wynne is possibly the best use of intarsia I’ve seen for ages. I am not a huge dog lover, but there’s something about sausage dogs that makes me giggle. And this is one loooooooooooooong doggie:

It’s completely not the season to knit cardigans, but Rose is beginning to outgrow even the biggest of the ones I knitted her before she was born and it’s always good to be prepared.

Yarnwise, I’m debating whether to go for the yarn used in the pattern, Louet Riverstone Chunky, or Texere Chunky. I love the colours of the original pattern, but the Texere yarn comes in stronger shades and I rather like the idea of turquoise with a mustard edging.

In either case, I need to equip myself with bobbins and larger needles. I don’t have any circular needles in the 5 or 5½mm sizes as I never knit with chunky yarns. This is going to be an expensive little sausage.

I need to stop overestimating the amount of knitting I can do in a day right now, especially when it’s the final few rows of a top-down triangular shawl. So I have nothing to share today. I could share a picture of the shawl all bunched up and sad-looking, but instead here is my favourite YouTube video ever, for old-time’s sake.

Also, I have decided to have a good clear out of my yarn stash because it’s frankly ridiculous and I *will* die squashed under a mountain of yarn one day. I’ve started updating my trade page on Ravelry, and will add more when I have spare time. Feel free to email or message me if you want to save me from my fate.

I’ve had a couple of kind people email me to say that they’ve been trying to leave comments but are being told that they’re spamming. I’ve deactivated the spam plugin on the blog for now and hopefully that will solve it for the time being. It doesn’t work, anyway, as I keep being offered cheap designer handbags…

Proper post later today.

One school ended for the Easter break yesterday, the other tomorrow. So I’m taking this as a sign that I need to batten down the hatches, fill the cupboards with food and hope my eardrums don’t burst.

It also means I’ll be away from blogging for a couple of weeks. I’ll be back mid-April if not refreshed and invigorated after my holiday, at least with some finished projects to share.

As I spend most of my “free time” knitting, I don’t get much time to sit down and just read these days, so when Rose has a nap it’s a nice treat for me to have a cuppa and a read of something knitting-related.

I have been buying Interweave Knits since the beginning of 2005 when I finally discovered it existed. It was very much a source of inspiration for me when I was less confident and more scared of anything that involved strange techniques like stranded knitting or even circular needles. Nowadays I buy it in the hope that one day I will again be motivated enough to knit myself a sweater.

So when I got an email from Interweave dangling a 15% discount in front of me, I decided to treat myself to some of the issues I don’t have, and started with 2004. It took 3 weeks to arrive after it was shipped, which made me a bit fidgety as I thought it might have gone the same way as my sock yarn, but it did get here, and I eagerly unwrapped it and put it into the PC.

Unfortunately, it’s not really the same, “ooh! new Interweave!”, experience when those magazines are on CD. When I bought the digital version of The Knitter, I wasn’t bothered about what else was in the magazine as I had my sights focussed on Alice Starmore goodies, but with Interweave I do like to read it cover-to-cover. Now the magazines are in pdf format, with a contents page at the side and the patterns are easy to print, but it’s not really the same as sitting on the sofa with a snoozing baby and something to read. But I have patterns aplenty now, with the Flower Basket Shawl being the first I printed off.

I think, for me, that digital magazines will only be an option for me if I’ve missed a must-have pattern and I will always prefer the feel and smell of a shiny new magazine, in much the same way that I eschew the idea of ebook readers. I suspect this is is a sign of me getting old.

Still no eyes: the ones I bought are too small, but there are still other bits to sew on while I wait. Can you tell what it is yet?

Only another million little pieces to go..!