Only 202 days to go...

I have a resolution. I realise it's 18 days into the New Year already, but I was thinking about a resolution I really wanted to achieve this year instead of something like not buying yarn in 2008. That just wouldn't work out for me - I would have my knitting needles crossed as I said it.

So I have it: 202 days until the start of the Beijing Olympics.

In these 202 days I want to either complete or frog the following wips so that I will be prepared to take on the Olympic knitting challenge - which this year will be the completion of Rogue (stop laughing - I can do this!) I have gauged Rogue - I know the needle size I need, the yarn is bought - I'm practically finished already!




At the moment I'm working on the 3 projects above - The Force scarf is a concentration/home one, the Summertime Tunic is a knitting group/work one, and the crochet wrap is for when my hands hurt from too much knitting!

These blasted armwarmers are practically finished - I'm up to the thumb of the second one - it would take me a weekend. Why can't I just get on with it?!


Above is Luna Moth - I'm going to go easier on myself for this one. It does require extreme concentration and about a gazillion stitch markers. I'm about halfway there. A quiet day off could make a big improvement in this. I want it for summer too...


Glasgow night/Kingfisher socks *sigh* my gauge was 7.5 stitches - yes I gauged in the round. Surely this deserves a reward, right? But no. My actual gauge is 8.5 stitches. So these must be frogged back a bit and made into wristwarmers now. Just psyching myself upto gathering the stitches to frog.



The 2 Branching Out scarves; the top one I want finished for spring time. The second one is to be frogged - Kidsilk Haze blows. It's just urg to knit with.

Picking up Pinwheel and learning short row shaping to try and bring her back to life is one of my biggest challenges. I'm going to do it though... I am!

And finally; Jaywalkers. I'm on turning the heel of the 2nd sock so again, not far to go. We'll just keep quiet about how these were my last Olympic knitting project *whisper* in 2006...

Wish me luck!!

It's been a while...

... but I didn't want to blog until Earnshaw was done. And now it is! (Yes I am hugging the radiator - it's freezing in Glasgow, and daylight for decent photographs is but a distant memory)

Earnshaw has a couple of problems ...

... it is a little wide. In fact I could fit one and half of me in it.


It has a breathtakingly strange-looking hood ...


... and the sleeves were a tad long.

But it is most definately loved!

I can finally blog about The Force scarf for the boy. Currently at 'orce be with you'; it will eventually say 'May the Force be with you'. The idea being that the force is always with you even if see it you cannot...

Above is the front view, and below is from the side - it's called Shadow Knitting, and I believe it originated in Japan.

I got the idea from a girl on Craftster and thought it would be a great Christmas present for the boy. (Yes I did wrap it on the needles ... )

Whilst tidying away the Christmas decorations, the boy was struck with one of those 'episodes' - you know the ones: The 'we have to get organised, and clean, and sort things out in the house!!' That kind of thing.

I was in the living room knitting and pretending I couldn't hear him calling me to get involved in the Great Cleaning Episode. This worked until I heard the sound of something large being thrown on the floor followed by the words 'do you want this stuff or not? ... since you haven't used it in three years!' Curiosity piqued (and fear of Important Things being discarded without my overseeing eye) I shuffled through to see what the large 'thing' was.

Turns out it was a binbag containing, amongst other things, the Tupperware lollypop maker passed to me from my mum. Bringing back memories of my childhood in Cyprus I had to bring them back to life. Plus ice lollies made from cranberry juice have got to be a good detoxifying start to my new year diet, right?

Yum!

Maybe it's time for a new hobby ...

I've joined the shoulder seams of Earnshaw - it's not a dress! In fact it fits just how I wanted it to. And I finished the sleeves and seamed one! And - because knitty karma is just not that nice to me - the sleeves look utterly stupid. I mean really really weird - I have points at my forearms. *le sigh*

So I have a plan. Why, by the way, must I always have to think of a plan? Why can't it work first time? Why!? Anyhoo, I digress... the plan is; to seam up the sides of the jumper, pick up the sleeves stitches and knit down the way. That way I can keep an eye on the sleeves in case they decide to form peaks.

Also knitting in the round is a must for garter stitch I have discovered. Mattress stitch on stocking stitch is a beautiful piece of magic, a miracle really. Mattress stitch on garter stitch edges looks like my cat had a go at knitting.

To remind me that it's not all bad, and sometimes good things can happen to good knitters; my finished replacement scarf with pockets. Lovely and cosy! I washed the Noro Silk Garden then soaked it in conditioner to soften it up - seems to have worked quite well. Cashmere it ain't, but it's still soft enough to wear next to the skin.

Oh well - suppose I better stop procrastinating and start frogging.

The 2nd day of Christmas

Not much knitting to report - Earnshaw is halfway up the 2nd sleeve now - the end is in sight.

The boy has been promising a cool advent calender as I don't take caffeine - which means chocolate. An advent calender with no chocolate is a dull affair indeed ... until ... in the shape of a Christmas tree; 24 Christmas scratchcards!! How totally cool is that!

WIPs, WIPs, wherever I turn...

Even though Pinwheel is still in the naughty corner, it has at least meant that I've been forced to look elsewhere for knitty gratification. I'm aware that with approximately 15 projects on the needles at the moment, I cannot possibly justify casting on something new. Even if I did, the WIPs would be crying away in the [usually ignored] guilt corner of my brain and ruin said newly cast on project.

So I've knuckled down and got on with it - the blocking project photographed is a Noro Silk Garden scarf - folded in half to block, as there is nowhere big enough to stretch it out full. It's two colourways striped every two rows. It was knit lengthways because at the time I thought this would be more gratifying as there would be less rows ... that each row took an eon to finish was something that dawned on me later.

This scarf is to replace a threadworn big grey scarf my granny bought me a few years back - I always wear it at work to keep me toasty and it has two big pockets. So I made this scarf with two pockets also. The grey scarf has been worn so much that it is full of holes and I'm going to have to say my goodbyes to it soon.

I pushed the needles into the carpet with this funky thimble I got from Tokyo - makes the job much easier!

Earnshaw has also been making progress - look: a back, an almost complete front, and an almost complete sleeve! [Yes, it is abundantly clear to me that this a knitted dress ... I'm ignoring it so please don't mention that I'm flogging a dead horse, or I may cry]

Earnshaw is more of an endurance feat than an enjoyable hobby at the moment. Ella at my knitting meet was reminding me how I was the same with Central Park Hoodie - convinced that it's never growing, measuring it every row, and generally whinging to all that will listen that I'm bored of it.

I don't know how this happens. I mean really. I find a new project, get hyper-excited about it, look halfheartedly in my stash, then buy some yarn [I wanted some shiny new yarn really]. I can't possibly wait for it come standard delivery, so pay a fortune for express shipping.

It arrives and sits for a bit, while I work up the motivation to gauge. Then I realise I don't have the right size needles, so I have to send away for them too. I gauge, then wait until the weekend to wash and block the squares. While waiting for the squares to dry, a little of the excitement of the project wilts.

Then it's cast on time and excitement all over again! I'll do this every lunch, teatime, every evening and all weekend and it'll be done in no time.

By the time I'm halfway up the back I'm getting restless. I can see what the yarn looks like knit up, I know how the pattern works, I'm looking for a new challenge. Maybe I'll just cast on a wee hat - that'll break up the monotony. Before I know it, there's 15 projects on the needles, and all of them bore me.

Fortunately I'm feeling the love for Earnshaw again ... for now anyway ...

An FO

Ever since the Pinwheel fiasco of late [still in the naughty corner] all my WIPs are taking on a 'blah' feeling. When this is combined with Christmas knitting which cannot be mentioned there was little left to blog about really.

My iPod cosy knitted a couple of years ago [with Bernat Handicrafter Cotton] has finally worn from overuse. Sure I could have frogged it and re-knit - but I felt it was time for a new design. And more importantly, time to get an FO out there just to make myself feel the knitty love once more.

Ta-da! A lovely snug cosy made from the remnants of the technicolour sock: Schoeller + Stahl Limbo Colour DK sock yarn in colourway 2539 Rainbow. It's so autumnal and the iPod cosy looks much better made from a finer yarn and smaller [3mm] needles.

Glasgow City Nights

So it didn't turn out exactly how I planned, but I think this yarn was fated to have another colourway name; Glasgow City Nights. It reminds me of autumn, fireworks, dark evenings and orange city lights against red sandstone tenements.

Speaking of fireworks; thank you to the 3 moronic twats who felt it would be just hilarious to light a rocket directly outside our house at 3.30 am. I was unable to get asleep again for quite some time, so busy was my brain furiously penning letters to MSPs. We found the rocket this morning next to the car - I was all for submitting it to Toryglen polis for fingerprinting ...

With thanks to the boy for putting up with me and driving me around Glasgow during the 20 minutes of perfect 'evening sky' for some good blog pics.

Partial triumphs....

I've been away from blogging land for abit - partially because the Ravelry forums are sucking away my life [in particular the pinny thread] and partially because I'm not having an awful lot of success on the fibre front of late.

Finally Pinwheel has been allowed off the naughty step and is currently blocking [looking to be about 5cm to small in the diameter which I think is totally fixable]. I have taken something good out of this debacle however; I have learned that once I have swatched I should go up 0.5mm needle size to get correct gauge for the 'real' knitting. Clearly I tense up a bit on the waste of time that gauge squares always feel like.

[Even though I'm planning on making a big project memory style blanket out of all the squares.]

A Christmas knitting gift [photographed in extreme close-up so as not to give the game away - the intended recipient is a reader] went a bit awry when I realised at the final hurdle that I had cast on the wrong number of stitches. The wrong number of stitches! I can't believe I failed at such an easy level! And then! - not to notice throughout another shaping aspect of the knitting because I ignored such lines as "you should have x number of stitches remaining, etc, etc" because it didn't even occur to me that I might not have the right number of stitches. *Le sigh* Knitty karma has swiped me once again.

I have cast on again ...

Good news - the yarn room is clean and organised - I'm very happy about this. Notice the extra empty pamphlet boxes to accomodate future knitting magazine purchases - I am thinking ahead.

I thought I'd play with my new Ashford dyes this weekend too. Notice my lovely new dyepot - she is pretty isn't she? So the kitchen was clingfilmed, then newspapered...


And the dyeing began. I wanted to create 'Kingfisher' as I saw one this year with the boy and apparently it's quite rare to see one, but I saw it right when I began birdwatching. I wanted the blue to be a Cerulean blue since this was the name of our hotel in Tokyo. The blue was spot on I think.

I used superwash sock yarn so that it was a total fudge it wouldn't matter as it'd be pretty much hidden anyway.

Then on Sunday I added the Kingsfisher orange - the perfect shade! This is where I should have stopped. Blue, orange and white - these are the colours of a Kingfisher.

But for some reason I decided it needed a brown for the muddy banks, and that was where it went a bit blugh. It turned out more purple brown than an orangey brown and doesn't look great. Unfortunately as it's quite a dark shade it's pretty much unfixable - unless anyone knows better? I'll probably just leave it though as my knitting karma seems to be set for October...

The final colours - I'm going to wait for it to dry then ball it up and see if it knits up nicely - I think it will as it's primarily the Cerulean Blue. Oh well, off to carry on with mystery Christmas shopping. Promise I won't leave it so long next time!