2019: The Year in Knitting

I have really rediscovered my knitting mojo this year. After a dismal showing last year (tbf I was really busy) and the year before (no excuse) I have managed to knit up more than both years combined in this year. Go me!

I have just FO'd the Volt, last Friday - pictures to come tomorrow, hopefully. I need to block it but I am putting it off.

More than half of my projects this year were for somebody else, which is a change. I have enjoyed new challenges like the picot beaded edging, steeking, colourwork socks and crochet. It was good to get the diatom shawl kit out of my stash, finally.

Much like this time last year, I am seeing the new year in with a stripey 4-ply Isabelle Kraemer jumper - this time I'm working on Ravello in some blue tweed I bought in Copenhagen in the summer, matched with some blue tweed I bought at Wonderwool coughcough years ago. Hopefully I will be able to beat my 2019 yardage in 2020. I'd really like to finish up some of the long-term projects I've been working on, too.

2017 Knitting Round-up

It's been a slow year on the knitting front. I had my knitting challenge all figured out but, for some reason, I haven't managed to knit much this year at all.

I have finished:

• Two sweaters
• One small shawl
• 16 hexagons

I have started two sweaters and one shawl. 

This has amounted to a paltry 4000ish metres out, and probably at least that much in during Wonderwool. Hmm. Not terribly successful. 

However, I have had a lot of wear out of my handknit jumpers this year and I feel like I've finally got the hang of knitting garments for myself, after a few years of too short in the waist, too short in the sleeves, saggy necklines and so on. Really I think next year should be about fixing the knitted garments I have made but never wear for some reason. 

I also think next year really does need to be the year of cold sheeping. I have enough. I have some beautiful things. I need to use them. 

Ooo...Wonderwoman

I am a big fan of Wonderwoman. I haven't seen the recent film, tbf, but I am a keen admirer of her outfit, peripherals and power.

(I'm guessing this image is copyright DC comics).

It's just iconic, isn't it? And easy to copy in a variety of ways. Last year I went to Hallowe'en bikram in a Wonderwoman outfit. I ironed some transfer stars onto some blue boxer shorts and wore them with a red bra top and a couple of wrist things I'd fashioned out of a cut up yellow towel. Unfortunately the popper I'd fabric-glued to the towel headband came loose, and the red star fabric painted on had not dried, so I wasn't in the full glory of it, but one day I will get another chance.

A few years ago, I knitted a WW headband for my ski buddy Cara for our fancy dress skiing. I am thinking of having a fancy dress ski day on the trip at Easter, too. I think I could DIY another one for myself by then.

Anyway. I have had a pattern in my queue almost since I started knitting, and browsing the finished items on Ravelry, I came across this amazing Wonderwoman jumper, and I decided I had to give it a go. That must be nearly two years ago now, since I bought the yarn for it at the John Arbon open day in 2016, so this week I have bitten the bullet, bought the pattern and got ready to get started.

This has mostly involved a lot of charting. I was a bit daunted by the stars and where to place them, so decided the only thing to do was to chart out the whole upper section and work out star placement before I got started. Right up to the final increases. Sigh.

To begin with, I charted out the blue, then added the stars and thought I was probably ready to start. But then I realised that I hadn't considered where the raglan lines would fall. I stewed on this for a day but then pulled up my socks and chart those as well....and ended up with something like this:

I say something like, because I had already begun fixing it by this point. I can't knit raglan increases on top of stars, my head will figuratively explode. I also started to worry that my stars might be a bit small, so I trawled Ravelry quickly for a pattern and have ended up with this:

(Just an aside - neither of these pictures captures the whole chart. It is bi, i, ig. Now quite sure it is usable, but it does put me in mind of when I charted the lace increases for that lace cardigan I never finished nearly 10 years ago. I hope that's not prophetic.)

Much more pleasing. Now I can start winding my yarn. There will be a point where I am juggling 10 white bobbins and crying into my gin, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it (and maybe strand).

Operation Stash Organise, Christmas 2016

aka "Operation Make The Spare Room Presentable".

The poor old spare room is crammed with:

• All spare bedding - blankets, pillows, sleeping bags etc - plus big pieces of foam that I use for blocking.
• Leftover boxes of stuff from when we redid the kitchen. Eight years ago.
• Remaindered craft supplies from when I used to do other crafts.
• Clothes I don't wear anymore but don't want to get rid of.
• Knick knacks I have bought on holiday and don't have a place for (the spare room is where I unpack).
• Board games. 
• All knitting books and magazines.
• And, of course, yarn.

For guests, I think it must be quite a scary place to sleep. There's a towering shelf against the bed and precariously-stacked hat boxes of yarn, and nowhere really to put anything down. 

I tidied it up a bit ready for Mother Hand's visit; I had, earlier this year, been through the boxes of stuff she had been secreting in her loft since I moved out at the age of 17, of whose existence I was unaware. That cleared out a lot of stuff, but there were a few leftover bits I couldn't bear to part with so I had to find places for those as well. A lot of stuff went back into the manky plastic chest of drawers I had almost entirely cleared out.

As an aside here, the cat helped a bit in my endeavour by spotting the one photograph in amongst the stuff on the bed that I had put aside to keep, and vomiting right into the middle of it. Alas, that picture of me with my Guide Captain on the night I was awarded my Baden Powell is consigned to distant memory. 

So anyway, here was the stack of stuff after it had been tidied (I know):

This is just clothes and yarn, really. It took me two days, done a little at a time, but here is the resulting stack:

For a true comparison, I should put back the boxes of clothes but I am hoping to get rid of most of that, too, so I have left them down for now.

The great news is that I have managed to completely empty the enormous clear plastic box of yarn, plus the several bagsful that were balanced precariously on top of the mountain. As I resolved in 2016, all my yarn now fits into the hidey hole (which is only half as big as it looks, on account of sitting on the slant of the stairs) and the hat boxes. Also, one of those hatboxes just holds leftover yarn from projects I have previously knitted and delinquent WIPs, so that's not too bad. It basically all fits.

Well, ALMOST. Of course, only almost. I have not put away the Moonlight gradient kit I bought at last Wonderwool; I bagged up two carrier bags for swaps and donating; the enormous stash of Rowan Herring Tweed is still being wound by my heroic in laws; and I haven't counted any of the yarn downstairs. While I'd like to think this isn't a massive amount, I know that I have at least a bagful stuffed behind my chair that I'm trying to ignore.

But, anyway, progress. I was very strict with myself and made sure everything put away here was listed on Ravelry. Even the Cascade. This has had the depressing impact of increasing my stash by 6500m but I keep reminding myself that it was already there, I was just pretending it wasn't.

So. The challenge is going to be to keep it like this. For a while, I think my knitting choices are going to need to be informed by what is taking up the most space, rather than what I want to knit the most.

Full, brutal disclosure: my stash stands, according to Ravelry, at:
173 items (29 of which are buttons)
102,895m of yarn (ouch)

Realistically, at the rate I knit, this little lot would keep me going for about 15 years. I'd be quite bored by the end, but still. I might have reached capacity.
To try to keep myself accountable, I will update my stash at some point with the rest of the yarn I own. By the end of the year I would like to have it back into 5 figures. 

Knitting Resolutions: 2016 Review

I wrote this post about what I hoped to achieve in 2016, knitting wise, back in January. I had it in the back of my mind that I would try to wind down as much of the stash as possible. To this end, I turned out about three bags for the charity table at Wonderwool and tried to prevent myself from buying too much.

I bought yarn twice this year: Wonderwool and the John Arbon open day. This amounted to roughly 10,000m of yarn in. I have knitted up (officially) 7,600m and I gave away 4,500m, so I have managed to get rid of about 20% more than I brought in. Not TOO bad. Not as good as I'd hoped - definitely not one third - but not too bad.

I did make some very specific resolutions:

1. Knit up all of the Cascade I have hanging around for roses for the rose chair. This might actually be enough roses to cover the chair. We'll see.
Nope. Not even one. Didn't even look out the pattern. I did carry around the 12mm needle tips for some time - one is still in my handbag. I don't know where the other one is. This is about as big a fail as it is possible to get, short of destroying the flowers I have already knitted. I'm currently sitting on the chair that needs upholstering, on a sheet, because the seat covering is worn so thin it might need professional attention if drastic action is not taken.
On the bright side, I'm starting a knitting club as an after-school enrichment from January and I intend to use it for this. We're all going to knit flowers.

2. Knit up all the single skeins of Lion and Lamb I have into hexagons for the epic blanket of gorgeousness. That's six skeins; seven if I count Bated Breath which is the colour I am currently knitting. I use the word 'currently' under advisement there.
I finished the Bated Breath, a partial skein of Georgetown (which wasn't part of the original count) and managed three more. I'm at 24 hexagons now, up from 2. Not a complete win, but not a complete fail either.
This isn't counted into the total above, because I decided that yarn only counts as used in the year that the project is finished. This adds another 1000m to the year's total to pass across the needles, though, which makes it easily my most productive knitting year ever, especially considering that everything I've FO'd this year was started this year - another first, come to think of it.

3. Knit another Central Park Hoody out of the black chunky tweed I bought from Emma's destash. That takes up shedloads of room.
Not a CPH, which calls for aran weight instead of chunky, but this yarn is currently being knitted into the cable yoke jacket. I fear the cable yoke jacket might be too warm for me to wear, ever, but that's another story.

4. Knit up the shawl kit I bought from Knitpicks in 2013.
Nope. I got it out and realised I'd lost the pattern, bought the pattern again online, found the original pattern immediately afterwards, carried it around with me for a while, but never started it.

5. Knit two other projects that use multiple yarns and that I have plans for - a several-coloured shawl for several blue DK skeins, and a variation on Ravello in an aran weight.
YES! I have done both of these things, of a fashion - the two-coloured blue shawl and the stripey cardigan.

Here are my completed projects, as per my Ravelry page:

...and the associated Flickr set, if you want to see them all in glorious detail, alongside many pictures of various buttons I was agonising over.

Liking the fact that some of these projects have a strong memory attached to them. Everytime I look at that red feather and fan sweater, for example, I think of watching War and Peace on the beeb.

Tuesday Ten: 2017 Project Challenge

Inspired by the reading challenge I did last year, I thought I would come up with a similar list to inspire my knitting. My official knitting resolution is "more out than in", in an attempt to try to dial down my stash to an amount that does not make me hang my head in shame. That is going to take me a lot of projects and some serious will power at Wonderwool, but I am up for it.

I kept the list to ten:

1. A pattern from your queue
2. A pattern you previously tried and didn't complete (could be a WIP)
3. A pattern you were inspired to knit by someone else's beautiful FO
4. Something from stash
5. A pattern involving a technique that is new to you
6. An accessory that you haven't knitted before
7. A pattern recommended to you by somebody else
8. A pattern from a book/magazine you own but have never used
9. Something for somebody else
10. A project using more than one type of yarn

I have a few things in mind. I desperately want to knit something from Alice Starmore's Tudor Knits, that I bought ages ago and love looking at. I'd quite like to try entrelac as a new technique. I've been meaning to knit a Wicked hoodie with a beaded silk collar and a laceweight body for a very long time.

So, yes, plenty of scope here. Please join in.

2016 Knitting Resolutions

This post has been a couple of weeks in the making.

I have reached a certain point with my stash now, where I really need to admit that I can't ever hope to knit everything I have, and scale it back. So, my main resolution is to do that. I will get rid of one third of my stash this year, either through knitting, selling or giving away. It's too pretty to be cooped up in boxes waiting for my retirement.

This goal has informed my knitting intentions for the next 12 months.

1. Knit up all of the Cascade I have hanging around for roses for the rose chair. This might actually be enough roses to cover the chair. We'll see.

2. Knit up all the single skeins of Lion and Lamb I have into hexagons for the epic blanket of gorgeousness. That's six skeins; seven if I count Bated Breath which is the colour I am currently knitting. I use the word 'currently' under advisement there.

3. Knit another Central Park Hoody out of the black chunky tweed I bought from Emma's destash. That takes up shedloads of room.

4. Knit up the shawl kit I bought from Knitpicks in 2013.

5. Knit two other projects that use multiple yarns and that I have plans for - a several-coloured shawl for several blue DK skeins, and a variation on Ravello in an aran weight.

That's probably it for now; having been through my stash at length yesterday, though, I would also like to knit some lace shawls out of some of that gorgeous laceweight silk I've kept festering in a box for years; and some socks; and something out of the Mirasol Miski I painstakingly stashed over a long period of time.

Hopefully doing all this will help me to break double figures in the yarn-out calculator this year, although that seems very optimistic.

Maybe I should give up my job. It's for a good cause, right?

2015 Knitting Resolutions Review

At the end of last year I made this post with my lofty ambitions for the year to come.

Shortly after making that post, I got stuck into a garment-knitting challenge on Ravelry and pledged to knit six garments in 2015. In my head, the two garments that were almost finished from previous years were within that total, which would have left me ample time for knitting other things. In reality, though, the amount of yarn I was able to use up knitting whole new garments proved to be like catnip, so basically all my resolutions fell by the wayside.

I did finish the Lopi shell.

I did knit something from the Jimmy Beans 2013 stash.

I did knit something from the Wonderwool 2014 stash....and three things from the 2015 stash. Two more jumpers and some mittens or something and I will have used up everything I bought at this year's Wonderwool.

I finished one delinquent WIP.

I knitted one additional motif for my Lion and Lamb blanket - at this rate, it should be finished by 2065, assuming I don't buy any more yarn for it. I did buy four more skeins this year - roughly 14 more motifs' worth - but Lorna's have stopped dying L&L in their limited edition colours so I think this might be it, unless they bring out any more permanent blues.

I finished one of my nearly-completed cardigans. This almost didn't happen, but then I was writing this post and became overwhelmed with shame.

I did not knit a single rose for my chair (have actually had to take the chair out of use for the moment because the cover is so worn I became afraid it would need professional attention).
I didn't knit any socks.
I didn't finish my other almost-completed cardigan: the blue one, I feel I have an excuse for, because I want to add sleeves but I want to pick up and knit down and I've never done that, so it's in the scary pile.

Yarn in and out. Well, I managed just over 8 km out. It's the best year for knitting totals since 2009. I beat last year, so I won that resolution too.
However, I brought roughly 17 and a half km of yarn IN this year. This is awkward. I need to stop buying yarn, seriously.

Actually, it's not as bad as I thought. I have had a busy year, after all.

New Year's Knitting Resolutions

My resolution last year was to finish 12 garments. I forgot I had so many hats to knit. I also toyed with the idea of knitting a certain amount of yarn; I believe my original estimate was in double figures, but I managed about 6km, according to Ravelry's built-in calculator. Not TOO bad but I definitely brought in more than 6km.

This year:
Finish these items that have been languishing, almost finished, for a very long time.

Finish knitting the roses for my rose chair.

I also want to do some more motifs for my Lion and Lamb blanket, but how many, I am not sure.

Knit something from the yarn I bought at Jimmy Beans in 2013. I'm thinking a top-down, V neck, plain vanilla sweater out of this gorgeous Madelinetosh. Having spent some time on Ravelry looking at how it knits up, I can't wait.

Knit something from the yarn I bought at Wonderwool. This stash enrichment coincided with my purchase of Alice Starmore's Tudor Roses so I have my eye on one of the patterns in there - probably Elizabeth, which is a fairly straightforward 4-ply sweater that I plan to knit in this.

Knit a pair of socks. I have managed a pair of socks annually for the past three years, so let this year be no different.

Finish knitting the Lopi shell I have been planning for years and cast on in the middle of all the hats. This is very chunky and should be a quick knit, but I do have to actually sit down and knit the thing.

Do something about my delinquent UFOs. I have 10 WIPs in hibernation - the time has come for them to be finished, or binned. Officially that is one a month. We'll see.

I think that is probably enough. I have many other ambitions but I don't want to be too....ambitious.

2014: A Knitting Review

So, according to the very clever tool on Ravelry, this year I have knitted 5,916 metres in 29 projects. I organised these projects by tagging them 2014 and creating a new tab in my projects which picks this tag up. I am not sure how long they've been doing the metreage thing but I love it, even if it does mean I have become overly fastidious about working out how much yarn I have used for a project.

I love them all. Several of the yarns had been in my stash for an embarrassingly long time: I think the winner was probably the v-neck jumper - I bought that yarn at Ravelry day in Coventry which must have been 2009. The brown jumper and the turbanesque hat represent a bit more stash from Wonderwool 2013 used up which, along with the tunic top I started in the silk/linen, means I've knitted up five of the eight projects I had planned with the yarn from that year. Not too shabby. The Oud tank represents my sole efforts with the 2014 Wonderwool stash - one out of ten. Shabby. Must do better next year.

I am very pleased to have finished the black lace scarf (never again) and finally have knitted, and made a success of, the barber pole pattern, which I have been lusting after for such a long time. Unfortunately this garment didn't make it into my suitcase for Italy so it hasn't had much wear so far, but hopefully next summer will be a warm one.

And, of course, I am so pleased with the hats! Quite proud of myself. I do enjoy knitting them, I did bust some stash (two skeins), a learned to love making pom poms, and it is nice to have such an appreciative audience; but I'm glad I don't have to do it again now for a while.

I only have 5 rows left on my Artyarns shawl kit, too...they are massive rows now, though, for the ruffle, and for some reason the final instructions aren't charted which is off-putting. But, I reckon if I can get it finished before the end of the year, it will push me over the 6km mark. That's a good incentive.

2012 Knitting Round Up

It has been something of a slow year for knitting. I don't think I will ever reach the dizzy heights of 2009, but then that year did involve two lots of snow days and almost three weeks off sick with my gall bladder and swine flu.

This year, I finished 16 projects, 14 of which I also started in 2012. I learned to crochet and busted quite a lot of stash. I designed a pair of mitts and heavily modified a hoody - good for keeping the creativity sharp - and I finished my first pair of socks. I cast on for four projects that remain unfinished, but one of those is going to be quite long-term, being felted flowers to upholster a chair.

Next year I really hope to finish a few more of my long-term UFOs and knit up some more stash, notably at least two of the yarn lots I bought at Wonderwool, before it's time for Wonderwool again. We're going for the whole weekend this time. God save me.

Good Intentions

No weekend FO again this week - I am having a mad rush of starting lots of projects so that they are at least on the needles. Some have been going for a while and need finishing. I am determined but busy. C'est la vie.



(Oh look - could it possibly be that Christmas is on the way, with a spread of colours like that?)

Clockwise from left -
Flip-top mittens for Mother Hand for Christmas, knitted in the sumptuous Debbie Bliss Andean Silk. I have some very lovely buttons with tiny purple flowers on for buttoning back the flip. These mittens have a lovely cable pattern and I really like how the twisted rib looks in this yarn.

Christmas socks. I'm ready to turn the heel. This is the second sock - I WILL be wearing them to school in the week before Christmas, by hook or by crook.

Yarn for Elise's fingerless mitts. I knitted her a pair two years ago and then they had to be hastily gifted elsewhere. This time I will strand the Malabrigo with this slightly sparkly Kidsilk I've got knocking about.

Baby jumper for Baby Parpy Jo. She requested a hoody that zips at the back, all the way through the hood. She requested a neutral colour which does not show up the dirt too easily (this matches Parpy Jo's ideal decor). I am giving her a Welsh Dragon intarsia. She does not yet know this. Her consolation will be that he will grow out of it quickly. She is against fancy dress but I think all 1-year-olds need to be dressed in picture knits at some point.

A sparkly Christmas decoration for a swap.

In my copious free time - a few more Yule trees, with any luck.

The awkward thing about all these projects is that none of them are at the "knit whilst catching up on Game of Thrones*" easy, non-pattern-referencing stage at the moment. This kind of cuts back on the time I spend on them. Tonight, for example, I have done no knitting and watched one episode of GoT. I really need to get a tree or a mitt cast on, either of which will fly by with very little concentration from me.

* Still can't decide if I love or hate it. I am getting quite absorbed in the characters but it has a slightly cheesy edge which I am not used to experiencing with things made by HBO.

Ahoy, Success!

I love it when a plan comes together.

It may not look like much (taken, as it was, without a flash using my phone, and then hastily "snipped" because I haven't got round to d/l'ing paint.NET - yes, this is the same navy garment I blogged about yesterday) but it represents a  triumph for me.

I have been thinking about how to create this for a long time. I tried what I had decided, which was sort of short rows - I knitted four rows in white on these stitches, Kfb into the first and last stitch to avoid curling on the advice of someone on Ravelry. It didn't quite look as I thought...so I stitched the top white row together with the bottom white row, et voila! The piped effect I had been hoping for. I can't stop looking at it, because it's so straight and perfect.

(Please ignore those wonky stitches at the end, the rest of it makes up for it in my eyes).

I haven't been quite so obsessed with a knitting project in a while; I just want it to be finished right now. Curse you, job. Curse you, sleep.

Hello, Sailor

I've had a hankering for a navy garment with Naval detailing on it for a while, ever since I saw a sweater in River Island that had piping embroidered onto the front. It took a while to find the perfect yarn and the pattern most easily bent to my will, but happily I am now well on the way to success.

The pattern is from last summer's Interweave - the Amelia Hoodie, which is knit in cotton, has all the shaping on the back (I really love the little kick-out) thus enabling me to play around with the front, and which I already owned. Result. The yarn is Sublime Egyptian Cotton in the shade Dotty. Ange at knitting group discovered this first and I think, between us, we have bought the entire stock. It is lovely to work with and really crisp, and the navy is a really lovely shade - the picture does not do it justice.

The construction is interesting. You knit eight patches in a variety of stitch patterns, then whipstitch them together, pick up and knit bottom up in the round. I decided to whipstitch in my accent colour of Frothy, which was not sensible - I see myself unpicking it all and stitching it together in navy because it looks messy. i have added a white stripe and will eventually do an applied i-cord around the bottom in the cream.

I'm pleased to say I have added quite a lot to it since this picture was taken yesterday - I'm at 12 inches and starting the bust increases. I am almost ready to knit the first of three elongated bobbles I have planned. We'll see how that goes.

I am full of knitting plans at the moment, which is just as well, because I catalogued some stash today and felt a bit overwhelmed. I have 55km of yarn now, not including the Cascade and Lamb's Pride which are hanging around for various projects and which I am too lazy to catalogue. I spent some time matching yarns ith patterns and now have at least five cardigans ready to go. Better get on and finished this one, then!

Tuesday Ten

Ten Things I Have To Do This Week

1. Give a presentation to all the AG&T parents tomorrow. Eek. I hate speaking to large groups of people.
2. Get travel shots for Malaysia. I thought I needed Typhoid, Hep-A and Tetanus. The nurse has added Polio and Diphtheria and wants to talk about Malaria. Yikes.
3. Get to bed before 10.30pm one night. I'm being attacked by a cold, I will not give in. If I can think of seven more things quickly, that night will be tonight.
4. Meet with the AG&T year 11s and ask them what they want to do for their weekend away this year. One of them caught me in the playground to ask me if it was happening and when I said yes, she and her friend actually jumped for joy. I love it when the kids are geeks.
5. Do something with that beetroot I cooked on Sunday and haven't done anything with.
6. ...but generally, eat less. I ate too much today. By-product of being tired and under attack from germs.
7. Add five repeats to Jo's scarf by the end of Friday.
8. Take my car into the garage. Henry's knocking on the side where the suspension broke in February. He's also getting a little rusty, the cradle for the spare is broken, he needs a new rear wiper blade, and the clock has started randomly going backwards on occasion.
There goes the extra money from the payrise this month...
9. Book an appointment with the beautician for Saturday.
10. And maybe the hairdresser. I will decide that when I get the bill for my car.


Also, I totally finished the tea cosy tonight:



Pattern: Debbie Bliss 24 Tea Cosy/Mug cosies
Needle: 4mm bamboo straights
Yarn: Cascade 220

Took a week. It might have been less, but I have a lot of other projects OTNs, in case you hadn't noticed.

One WIP down, six to go. Oh yeah. I am going to be all fresh and ready for brand new projects in November, you mark my words!

October's For Finishing

I made October a finishing month.

I did set myself up carefully, though, by starting a small project on the last day of September - I am so over big projects at the moment and wanted something easily finishable, so I cast on for the tea cosy.

Tonight, I gathered up all my WIPs - healthy and delinquent - and photographed them. Here's my wishlist for October (in the reverse order they were cast on) -

1. Tea Cosy



This would have been finished tonight, but I am very tired and was only in the mood for staring blankly, until I had a shower, which re-energised me enough to make this post. I intend to finish it tomorrow. Much knitting during the lunch break and then some more in the evening ought to do it. But, I want to line it with a bit of purple fleece I have lying around to make it snugger, so it might take a few days to actually finish after it's OTNs.
Chances of finishing in October: Very high


2. Stripey Candy cardigan



I put a few more rows on at the weekend. I need to start the sleeves, really, which count as little projects (sort of) and so will be cast on after the tes cosy is finished.
Chances of finishing in October: High


3. Jo's lace scarf



I added two more pattern repeats at the weekend. I intended to be very, very strict with myself and add a pattern repeat a day, plus a few extra at weekends - at which pace, I'd be ready to add the border in the half term. I haven't added anything to it yet, though.
Chances of finishing in October: I want to say High, but I think I should say Medium-high.


4. Endpaper Mitts



Good to have hanging around when I need something quick, but not an urgent knit.
Chances of finishing in October: Low Medium


5. Bamboo top



When I hauled this out I remembered that I messed up the folded edging but couldn't rip, because the yarn looks nubby after ripping. I need to get over this. I think it will even out in blocking - and even if it doesn't, it's at the back. I'm highly motivated to complete this ready for Malaysia in November.
Chances of finishing in October: Medium High - as long as I can talk myself out of hating my shoddy folded edging.


6. Red cardigan



I am going to knit the fronts of this a needle size down from the back, and hope I can fudge the back together with the fronts without having to rip the whole thing.
Chances of finishing in October: Medium high, as long as the back will fit with the rest of the pieces (which will be at correct gauge).
Otherwise, slim to none. Will become plane knitting.


7. Breeze on a sea air cardi



I love it so much. It was such a labour of love. I'm so worried it's going to be massively too big. It's so complicated, and I haven't put a stitch on it in over a year, and didn't mark the pattern when I stopped.
Chances of finishing in October: Slim to none. I might even have lost my incredibly complex colour-coded home made chart. But, with an extra year's experience under my belt, I bet it's not as complicated as I remember.



Gratuitous extra picture. This post took 10 minutes to write, and 25 to populate with pictures. Bloody Blogger. Bloody internet connection. Bloody something!


I'm nothing, if not optimistic.


Note to self: Today, I needed my coat (which I didn't take) and I wanted to put the heating on. I managed to get the heater on in my room, because I can't bear the incessant whining, but have resisted at home.

Subconscious colour selection

During our holiday we went to Hot August Nights, a vintage car show in Reno. Mr Z spent a lot of time wandering around looking at the cars and taking arty pictures, while I spent a lot of time taking pictures of my reflection in the cars...

...and admiring the colours. My favourite was this Skylark.

The picture doesn't do it justice. I loved the turquoise, of course - that drew me to the car in the first place - but then the engine parts in bright pink and purple just sealed the deal for me. Love. I decided I loved it so much, I would come up with a knit - maybe a stripey jumper - in the same colour combo, at some point.

(I also loved that it was a Skylark, mainly because the only time I have ever come across this type of car before is in My Cousin Vinny when Marisa Tomei is talking about it on the stand and I can hear her accent in my head, which makes me grin.)

Several days later, I went to Jimmy Beans armed with a shopping list which included Lorna's Laces Worsted in Wisteria colourway. They didn't have it, so I came away with four skeins in Uptown, which sang to me from its shelf hook and which I dithered over for quite a long time before finally giving in.

It wasn't until I got home and wound it that I realised....

It's my Skylark!

The funny thing is, I went to try and find a picture of the colourway online because I figured it would be a truer colour representation than what I could photograph, and it seems like this colourway usually has quite a lot of royal blue in it too. Not this dyelot. It's just a lot of turquoise and some pink and purple in there too.

I've had a look for Rav projects in this colour and the only one with any notes says, "I HATE these colours! Good thing the scarf's not for me..." *gasp* sacrilege! I am loving it. I'm designing a kimono-type sweater with it, in the hopes that it won't be too hot for me to wear. And it's the first thing I've cast on for since getting back, in spite of the fact I have the yarn and pattern all ready to go on two other projects, and a lace scarf in dire need of special attention.

For those of you with sharp eyes - yes, that's a properly wound cake of yarn, from a ball winder. Mr Z bought me one at Jimmy Beans for my birthday. It is so much quicker than going by hand - in fact, I had the swift whizzing at such a pace I thought it was going to break up.

2008 - A Knitting Review

Hmmm. I like blue, don't I?

In 2008...

• I finished my first sweater - the Central Park Hoody.
• I knitted 24 hats, and gave 23 of them away.
• I caught the bug for viral knitting, and completed a Clapotis, a pair of Saartje's booties and the Drops Swing Jacket.
• I thrummed for the first time and made mittens.
• I cabled a pair of wrist warmers.
• I knitted a pair of earrings with wire and beads, on the day the pattern was published (3rd project on Ravelry, and one was the designer's!)
• I finished two scarves - one skinny, which took months; one chunky, which was started and finished on Christmas day.
• I knitted a corset top out of soy silk - favourite FO ever.
• I knitted a shawl, from one skein of LE Lion & Lamb.
• I STARTED a bag, my first attempt at lace with a mohair cardi, a digestive system for the science department and a scarf for Mr Z - which all lie languishing in the UFO pile.

I am quite disappointed I didn't even manage to knit one bag, in spite of joining the Knittabaggamonth group, but I'm pleased I managed three full sized garments. I've put a moratorium on knitting garments for the moment, since I am doing quite well with the old weight loss thing and I don't want to end up wasting yarn on something I won't be able to wear for longer than a few months.

That said, I cast on for a fishtail lace boob tube yesterday (no pattern link - it appears I was just in time because the link is dead!) I am knitting it from allhemp6, with a halter instead of a straight edge, and I hope to have it finished by my holiday in a month...we'll see. The hemp's quite hard on the hands and it's looking a bit crazy right now, but hopefully after 3 repeats of the lace pattern it will start to take shape; and a good blocking should get it looking shipshape. I am knitting to a different gauge and at 2 inches negative ease, so I am really crossing my fingers!

Light at the end of the tunnel

It's been a long old year.

It's been almost a whole one since I got my promotion, and one in which I don't think I've done as well as I could. I've felt more and more wretched at my lack of innovation in G&T since I got the job, and as time has gone on it's just got worse and worse. Trying to juggle that with the Aim Higher stuff, and teaching, and the ski trip, has been an impossible task. I was so happy to be giving up the Aim Higher and delaying the ski trip by a couple of months.

But this weekend, as I scribbled down idea after idea for G&T next year, I realised that I had been too hard on myself. I never allowed for the fact that it might take me a while to get going. I couldn't pick it up and be amazing from day 1. I really feel now that I've got a good understanding of the expectations and rigours of the job, and I can actually start getting on with it.

Yeyyyy!

Serious part over. Fun part beginning. The weekend is a good example of that fun. We went on the annual Murder Mystery weekend with 36 key stage three pupils, and they were lovely. Lovely, lovely children. Didn't stop making an effort for the whole weekend, and coped very well with the changes to the program we had to make, thanks to the weather.

If only the same could be said for all the staff (return to the not so fun bit). They were, in the vast majority, as enthusiastic and hard-working as the kids. Unfortunately, one in particular seemed to be unhappy with pretty much everything we did. On one point her complaints were valid, though she went about complaining about them in a very over-the-top way - really throwing her weight about and not giving me a great deal of opportunity to explain that she was basing a lot of her complaints upon something that wasn't true. I stayed calm and didn't argue back. No point. I was even more pleased I'd taken this course when, after that was over, that evening she had another row about not understanding what was going on or who she was supposed to be. Since she wrote the bloody story, with me and another, this came as something of a shock, and I don't think it was strictly the case. She also complained that our costumes were rubbish - when she'd been delegated to collect the costumes from our resident wardrobe mistress, and had said the day before that she'd kept forgetting. Le sigh.

I'm trying to remind myself that she had a very stresseful week, and hasn't been very well, and then I found out she was at a very low ebb on Friday afternoon, and it didn't help that I was poorly organised with the paperwork. Still, I think there are ways and ways of dealing with stress, and taking it out on your colleagues, who are giving up a weekend of their time to do an enrichment activity, is a bit low.

It makes me sad. Normally, the end of the Murder Mystery is a really happy, positive time - and I can look at it like that, if I think about the kids and how well they got on and enjoyed it. But it's left a bad taste in my mouth, and I hope I don't have to invite her next year. I can really do without that sort of negativity.

Onto more pleasant things, like my newest knitting project. I found a pattern for a knitted digestive system some time ago and Phillipa (head of science) commissioned me to knit on, so I got that started on Saturday afternoon at the Murder Mystery. It was a fiendishly difficult beginning - a provisional cast on and join in the round. I'd never done provisional cast on before, and with only 10 stitches it was difficult to keep my needles in the stitches and get it into a circle. In the end I did it on a circular and pulled the thread very tightly as I knitted it onto DPNs. Since the end of the knitting is turned inwards to make a nice puckered anus (there are three words bound to get my blog googled as a porn site...) it didn't really matter that I didn't do a great job of it. It's looking good so far, but knitting 15 feet of small intestine might get old quickly.

I have been wearing my CPH all over the place. It is warm and lovely and I get lots of nice comments. It isn't strictly finished yet (ssshhh!) because I wanted to wear it, and I know it will take me ages an ages to make myself pick up the stitches for a button band, or get a zip for it. It desn't look too shabby without either, but I am going to make myself do it in the summer, when it's too hot to wear it. I did the hood with a three-needle bind off and carried the cable up the back, and because I messed with the stitch pattern I have two little points on the hood, but I am not particularly fussed - I think they make a nice feature.

I have several knitting irons in the fire now, since the CPH is off the needles for present. I am all ready to cast on for Annie Modesitt's Corset Top - I have some royal blue soy silk that's just the thing. I swatched it two weeks ago and then, in spite of advice given to me at knitting club, washed it and let it dry - thank goodness I did! The swatch stretched to almost double its original width, and if I'd made the top it would have come out too big even for me. I don't know what to do now though - I want to drop from 4mm needles to 3.5mms without swatching again and hope it'll be alright, because I'm too lazy to swatch again and too impatient to let it dry - I want to make a good start with it over Easter weekend because I'd like to wear it to a wedding in May.

I don't know why I'm saying this - I know I'll swatch it again. I'm not a rebel, really.

In addition to this, I have yarn for a Noni Cherry Blossom Bag, and for Dahlia from Knitty, and a couple of skeins of chunky to knit some headwear with. I don't know what headwear yet, but I am aware that March is drawing rapidly to a close and I have yet to knit a hat. Shock horror! That's no good for knittahattamonth. I will have to cast on the bag instead, so at least I've done something for knittabaggamonth.

Then, next month, I'm going to knit a tricorner hat for felting - because next year's Murder Mystery theme is pirates, and I'd like to get ahead *grin*

More quickies

I am barrelling along with my Central Park Hoody and managed to finish my first ball of wool on a trip to London a couple of weeks back, but then it occurred to me that Christmas was almost upon me and I should get on with some gift knitting.

So here it all is....

A cupcake for Pam at work for secret Santa...Pam is the staffroom mummy and always nagging us to bring in cakes for Friday breaktime, so I knitted her this. Well, I knitted her another one after this because I made several fairly serious mistakes with my first attempt (pictured) and I wasn't happy.

In the course of this, I discovered that the local Poundland stocks soft acrylic in DK and a wide range of colours, for only £1 per 100g. How exciting! This means I can buy some pale lemon balls to knit Mother Hand a sweater she wants and can't find to buy.

Then, I bought some suede lacing and made my friend Kath a whip...


...it's not quite finished because I needed cable ties and I only just got some. This was really fun to make and super easy; the 30m I bought made 2 with a bit leftover, although that doesn't really add up because the tails account for 12m and then there's a knitted bit, and with 7m left over....well, you don't have to be great at maths to work out that perhaps Jillybead sent me too much.



Finally, I knitted Ali a beaded cuff bracelet...

SO. Pretty. I love it! It was really fiddly to start with, and I couldn't do the tapered end I wanted to, but happily the project takes to shaping and wiring together at the end, so I was happy with it in the end.

I have now cast on for Mr Z's binary scarf: I was putting it off, since I've never done Fairisle and have no desire to. But I think it will be OK. I'd like to finish Binary and CPH over the Christmas break; you never know. I also need to find something for friend Jo, who I don't want to feel excluded when I dole out knitted gifts to Ali and Kath. I think I will make her some reusable facial pads and a little mesh bag to wash them in. Time is running out, though.

It's the last day of term for the kids today. We finish in about 1 hour and 19 minutes. Roughly. It can't come quick enough. Last night I took my tutor group out on a trip, where I was almost thwarted at every turn by incompetents at both Pizza Hut and Bowlplex (if only I could find the time/energy to write a letter of complaint), and spent much of my time trying to prevent the boys from feeding all their money into the fruit machines. Now they're back. I will come back and add to this later today, after I've consumed a bottle of chenin blanc in the bath.

Edit: I was in such a hurry I forgot to add the pictures, even!

When I got home, I had a 2 hour bath and a 3 hour nap, and I'm now coddled in a duvet watching Die Hard and thinking every day should be like this one. I have been feeling positively inhuman for the past couple of weeks; to quote Bilbo Baggins, "Like butter spread over too much bread." I couldn't catch up on everything by the end of term and this put me in an even worse mood. Plus, on Monday I had to drive down to Calshot for a one-hour course to refresh my knowledge of ski bindings. This utterly pointless waste of time involved a 4-hour round trip and when I arrived and the instructor said, "Wow! You've come along way - do you have to come all the way down here?" I had to restrain myself. I tell you, sometimes it feels like I've had more training in the name of this damn ski trip than I did to become a teacher. Hopefully it will all be worth it, and I won't end up having 2 weeks off with an ear infection afterwards, like last year. With 6 staff members to 32 kids we should have enough leeway for some evenings off.

Anyway. Tomorrow is TD day and I managed to avoid fire extinguisher training (the story goes, that the head didn't put anybody in History on that list because we're in mobiles and they'll go up so quickly if they catch alight that we won't be able to use an extinguisher; how comforting) and first aid training, so I have an entire day of faculty time stretching ahead of me, a prospect that I find disturbingly thrilling. Ian doesn't seem to have a great deal planned, so I am hoping to get some reports written and some marking done, and then slope off a little early to the Limpley Stoke hotel for the Christmas party. I'm even more thrilled at this. For the first time, I'll be stopping over in the hotel, and not even driving home the next day. I feel a very drunken night coming on.

Also tomorrow, in my absence, we can expect the arrival of Mother Hand's latest silly purchase. Now, I don't really think it's silly - I just think she is. When I went to see her in London for her birthday a couple of weeks back (note to self: never again - London on a Saturday in December = NOT FUN) she handed me an envelope wrapped in wedding paper and was barely able to contain herself as I opened it to reveal....delivery instructions fo a pink Smeg fridge freezer. I'm rarely speechless, but on this occasion, I didn't know what to say. How exciting! We've been putting off doing the kitchen since we got married, but may have to move on that soon, since the new fridge freezer will not fit neatly into the space left by the old one.