Weekend WIP

I've been working on these for about 3 weeks. I had to rip back part of the cuff on the first one because I'd pulled my floats too tight, but were it not for that they'd be even closer to being finished. DK socks are speedy, and therefore perfect for somebody who is really busy. I started the second one at knitting group yesterday and I'm almost ready to start the colourwork on the foot already.

My first top down socks and I don't hate it, although Kat had to graft the toe for me at knitting group yesterday (thanks Kat) because I am inept. I do well out of knitting group, people are always doing helpful things for me. I lead a charmed life, truly.

I messed up the pattern a bit because the toe and cuff and heel should all match, but obviously don't on sock one and so won't on sock two either. But it matters little.

For the foot of sock one and all the colourwork since, I have followed the suggestion in the pattern instructions and knitted it inside out, giving plenty of play to the float by holding a finger between the yarn and the sock so it doesn't pull tight. It has worked a treat. A little fiddly, but that's the benefit of the DK, I suppose - there are not masses of stitches to worry about.

Weekend FO

I finished this about three weeks ago but, yknow, June. Every year the end of it catches me by surprise.

 Pattern: Bee Happy Shawl by Samantha Hinks
Yarn: Unbelieva-wool Sparkly Sock. Most of two skeins (a bit less of the grey)
Needle: 3.75mm
Mods: I knitted the moss stitch sections as moss stitch as I know it, rather than as instructed. I skipped the final two rows of yellow garter stitch and went straight into the cast off. The designer was selling the kit at Wonderwool without the sparkle, and reluctantly swapped them out for me after explaining that she really didn't want me to run out of yarn, so I came up with a couple of contingency plans. My other thought was to knit the bind off in grey, of which there is more left, but in the end I liked the yellow edging with the yellow beads.

Blocking, Wrong side up. Sunny day. I liked the light and shadow but it doesn't make for a great picture, sorry.

I couldn't get on with the picot edging instructions. I couldn't make the yarn overs work - I think I was having brain freeze. Moreover, I couldn't find an instructional video or website that used the same instructions, so in the end I used some others. K1, CO 1, BO 1st knit stitch, CO1, BO 1st CO stitch, place bead, CO 1, BO beaded stitch, K1, BO1, K1, BO1 - each picot bound off 3 shawl stitches together with 3 cast on stitches. It looks good. 

It is just as well that I kept on with this until I'd finished, even when it looked like Naomi wasn't leaving in July - she got a last minute reprieve and is heading back to Northern Ireland at the end of this term. Very sorry to see her go but delighted to get this done in time.

Weekend WIP

I am very close to finishing the bees shawl, thanks to half term and a whole Saturday spent knitting, between knit group and the Flock gathering hosted by Birdstreet UK. I had stiff hands by the end of the day, but it did mean that this afternoon I was ready to start the beaded picot edging.

Six picots down, 165 to go...

I found the instructions a little confusing and difficult to work - lots of YO, bind off stitch over YO, but then a weird instruction about picking up the last bound off stitch in each picot and passing the YO over it. Well, I couldn't make this work - I kept losing my last YO. I went away and watched picot edge videos on YouTube, read picot edge blogs and looked in my stitchionary, to no avail. I don't think there's anything wrong with the instructions: I just can't make them work for me. So, in the end, I am doing something a bit different -

K1. Cast on a stitch. Pass the knitted stitch over to bind off. CO a stitch, pass one over. Bead that second CO stitch. CO another stitch, pass beaded stitch over. K1, pass over, k1, pass over. 

It's going to make a pretty, wavy edge when it is finished. If I can do 20 picots a night, I should be able to FO it next weekend....we'll see. It's not the funnest bind off ever.