Overdue FO Post: Hat 1

In 2008 my old tutor group were approaching the end of their compulsory schooling. They'd joined the school a year after me and I'd been their tutor all the way through. When one of them jokingly suggested I knit them all hats for their last Christmas, I thought that sounded like a good idea. I was a much slower knitter then but I managed it, even though the very sullen girl who had been moved to my group at the start of Y11 and never came to tutor time decided to come in on that last day of term and I didn't have a hat for her. I knitted her one with a skull on it and posted it home to her over the holidays. It would have been too small, but she never said anything.

Now it's 2014 and my new batch are almost there. I feel very old. I loved my old tutor group to bits but they were extremely hard work; in contrast this one is very easy and pleasant. Thus, I thought I had better continue to hat tradition and this is the first one - the Suzi.

Pattern: Sweet by Amanda Lilley (free pattern from the Cascade website)
Yarn: Sirdar Big Softie, about a ball and a half...the shade is Blinging Blue, which I maintain is a royal blue but which Mr Z claims is purple.
Needle: 9mm
Mods: Using the 9mm needle. It was snug on me; better after a good blocking but I should go for the 10mm for the next one. It is not blocked in this (terrible) picture.

Most of them have requested beanies; I hope this is the sort of thing they mean. It is a nice pattern: the cabling keeps the interest up. I am also hoping to knit most of them out of Softie. I completed this one in the space of three episodes of Game of Thrones, about three weeks ago now. No knitting has taken place this week; the combo of doing the exam board work and being a head of department has put pay to that.

Now I need to find, as recommended to me by someone (Jenny?), a small child who loves making pom poms. They all want pom poms, of course. Sigh.

Fave Friday

In case you were unaware, I love this colour. I was excited to discover it is as available as Shellac (Cerulean Seas) and even more excited to discover that it perfectly matched my skirt. It also, as was pointed out to me by no less than three sales assistants on the day I took this picture, matches the trim on my bag. It's good when you have a favourite colour because everybody assumes you're just co-ordinated.

Sadly I had to remove the colour on Wednesday ready for a manicure yesterday, when I intended to have a more traditional colour (while nail varnish is not banned for staff, I did wince this week when providing nail removal wipes for two students whilst at the same time having such an obvious paint job myself), but then I missed the appointment. I had a shocker of a day. First, thanks to a variety of reasons my role on the new exciting writing project was moved to being digital resources only, which made me feel very sad (not really anything I did/failed to do; and certainly not the only writing project in the works, so not the end of the world), but then I got stuck in traffic for 45 minutes because of a BROKEN DOWN CAR (push it onto the pavement, you git!) and missed the appointment, and was unable to rebook because they're so busy. Which means that, tomorrow, inferior nail technician will do an inferior job.

I might have to have this colour again to cheer myself up. I do get cheerful just looking at it.

Weekend WIP: Watermelon socks

Bit of a cheat, this one - I only managed to put a few rounds on it. I have been very busy all week, dealing with exam board work (what schools would call re-marks but that's a bit of a misnomer because the initial marking is scrutinised, rather than the paper being re-marked....how dull of me to tell you this but every time I have to call the process "re-marks", so people understand why I am so busy, I wince internally because it's not really true. I clearly have issues) and being a head of department. I got three boxes of chocolates in my first week; if this is what being a HoD is like then I really should have done it years ago.

I also had a very interesting workshop with the publisher on Saturday. It meant spending a weekend in London that I could have done with having at home; but I got to hang out with my old friend Sian and the workshop was great, although scary, because there is a lot of work ahead. Expect blog blackout for about six months next year, by the looks of it. Either that or many lists about why I love my job, which is a sure sign things are overwhelming me.

I digress. Of course I started these socks months and months ago, and I had super-high hopes for finishing them by Easter, and then I left them on the ski trip bus and they took nearly eight weeks to get back to me, and since then I have been working on summer tops. But they're finally having a bit of attention. I am hoping to maybe finish them by the end of the month, because, how pretty? I want to wear them!

They're even cuter in daylight.

Weekend FO: Oud

I'm on a roll!

Pattern: Oud Tank from Knitscene this past spring
Yarn: Texere C4 linen
Needle: 3.75mm, 4.5mm
Mods: I knitted shaping in the body pieces. I knitted a hybrid of the two largest sizes to better fit my shape. Due to my apparent inability to read a chart, I knitted a slightly different lace pattern for the collar. I also slipped the first stitch on each row so when it came to crocheting it in place....well, let's just say there may be a little bit too much collar for the neckline.

It needs a good blocking and the colours look a bit weird in this hasty picture; I don't know if anybody else would pick this combination but I really like, ergo it is a success. It's much too late in the season to wear in the sunny weather, but I think it will look nice over a long sleeved white t-shirt now the weather is cooler.

I do love the pattern. This was a great issue for me and there are a good half dozen patterns in it that are in my mental queue; but this was the stand out pattern for me. I'm a sucker for a Peter Pan collar.

Weekend FO: Black Lace

Or "Agadoo" as children of the 80s might think of it.

 Pattern: Miss Lambert's Shetland Pattern for a Shawl from Victorian Lace Today
Yarn: Zitron Filigran, black, 65g
Needle: 3.5mm
Mods: I changed the size but I am unable to explain exactly how. Somewhere in the dusty recesses of my mind palace I seem to recall I should have had 70 stitches across but I only had 48. More scarfy than shawly.

This took a while. Nearly a year. It didn't need to have done; I caned the border during a Game of Thrones marathon last week and managed to complete three-quarters of it in under three days. However, there were issues with my tools. Firstly, the only 3.5mm tips I had were Knitpicks Harmony: dark wood. Not ideal for black lace. Secondly, the only 3.5mm DPNs I had (for the border) were Clover bamboo and BLUNT. This made the border knitting a PITA, so much so that when I finished the first long side and turned the corner to the live stitches, I started using the circular needle instead, even though the darkness of the wood necessitated me having the light on during the day in order to avoid early blindness. Thirdly, this happened, a LOT -

I don't know why. I don't know if I had a duff skein or I messed it up when I wound it or what, but I would invariably find these sections as the yarn travelled through my hand on its way to the scarf, so with approximately two inches on which to spit splice. Very inconvenient. The cake also broke up during the knitting so I had to rewind, and it tangled irreversibly....so although it is only 65g from a 100g skein, the rest is destined for the bin. It is too much work. I don't know where the other skein is, but it's going in swaps, for a very low price.

I remember buying this yarn, about 87 years ago, and dithering for ages between it and the Malabrigo lace. The Malabrigo had more of a halo and this made it less black, so I went for the Zitron. I hoped it would bloom a little more on blocking. As it is, it definitely feels like a poor man's cousin of the original VLT-scarf-for-Parpy-Jo. But, hopefully she will enthuse over it regardless. And I am reminded that the Malabrigo had actually felted a little before I even finished the scarf, so it's not perfect either.

It's still very pretty. And it stretched like a mofo. It was 11x42 before blocking; 15x62 after.

Greetings from Roma

Here I am outside the national stadium, which I visited by accident on a quest to see the Foro Italico which I was was reliably informed was a bastion of Mussolinianism. I was not disappointed. It is very hot here but then we do keep going out around 11am so I suppose we have only ourselves to blame. 

The hotel is exceptionally fancy; this morning Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond were planning what appeared to be a trip to Argentina over coffee in the breakfast restaurant, and as I write a waitress is pouring mint tea from a silver teapot as I recline by an 18th century tapestry. There must be three blog posts in this hotel alone, let alone the rest of the holiday. 

Tomorrow we're off to our private Tuscan villa; I don't know how I will cope with not being waited on hand and foot but we will at least have a private pool. Maybe there will be some more blogging from there; I am spending a lot of time reading and napping though, so maybe not. 

Happy August!

Weekend WIP: Oud

It's getting there! And today, I have finished the second lace panel, which just leaves the lace collar, the sewing up and the picking up and knitting around the armholes and the bottom . It's a pity I go on holiday tomorrow.

It is pretty sheer, but I'm not really sure what I expected. I think if I'd read the instructions properly before starting and realised that the lace panel is on a needle a whole mm bigger I might have rethought my needle/yarn combo choice, and maybe rejigged it for a finer gauge. As I have been knitting it, I have become concerned that I will never actually wear it. So, I think I will be taking it all on holiday with me, sewing up on the train to the airport, and finishing it on the beach, to wear on the beach. Hopefully. It will mean winding off some of the linen to take with me, because I am NOT lugging those cones on the plane, but it will be a small price to pay. This is definitely a garment for holidays, and if I have to wait another year to wear it we all know it will sit in the UFO pile until then.

And, anyway, I need it to get even close to my target of 12 garments in 2014. This will be number 4. It's not looking good, people, especially with 22 hats to go....