Hello Again!

Well, this morning, I've finished the "Secret of the Stole" pattern. The pictures are in the slideshow to the side. Blocking the stole will be happening in about a week. More photos after it dries.

I liked this knit-a-long. Even though I had a bit of aggriviation with using moth-eaten wool/silk (my fault) and now I've got what feels like 10,000 ends to weave in, I'd do it again.

In fact, I am. I've signed up for "Secret of the Stole II", and it starts in January. Go me!

Anyway. I'm off to do some work on the scroll wrap. Wish me luck. It's been fighting me the last couple weeks. I think it's been jealous. *snicker*.

Later.

Oops

Well. The last month ran away.
If I hadn't decided to see when I'd made the last entry here, then I'd probably have let November skid by without an entry as well.

Problem is that Ravelry's addictive. Lots of features that are easy to fill in and tweak, and before you know it, there's pages and pages of your own knittig things from stash to projects (in all stages from planned to finished to frogged)

I's decidedly evil (and satisfying) that one "small" community can cause so much havoc - and you feel motivated to work on knitting projects that are neglected or long forgotten.

So, what have I been knitting?

One old project and one "new".
I've been crawling along on the Black Silk Scroll Wrap.
and
I'm almost half-way on the "Secret of the Stole" knit-a-long.



this is the last photo I took of the Stole. It does have beads, but they happen to be frosted ones, so they don't show - and yes, it is crumpled on one side - it's my fault for being in a hurry to take the photo.

Anyway, I'm feeling a bit blah, so I'm off to bed.

Night.

Bought some stuff.

On Saturday (the 13th) My Dad and I went to a Gem and Mineral show in Bakewell at Lady Manners School.

It's the only show I get to go to now, having no car. But I had a lovely time looking at bits of rocks.

Got a few mineral samples and a couple fern fossils that came from a coal mine in France.

The prettiest thing though, is a 16" string of bronze freshwater pearls (5mm) that only cost me £5.
I now have to figure out how to string them to their best advantage. I've a few ideas - including the standard knotting on silk thread (I'm thinking a soft brown or soft pink).

I'm off to look at the few photos that were taken at the show. Maybe I'll upload a couple.

Later.

Yee-Hah!!!!!

I've been waiting and waiting. . .and waiting.

I ordered 18 balls of Sirdar's Snuggly Baby Bamboo yarn from Texere Mill for a sweater - they didn't have enough balls - so Texere sent off to Sirdar to get more yarn for me (18 balls so I'd have all the dye lot the same). Sirdar didn't come through. So Texere tried again. . .and again.

Finally. Today, after waiting about a month, I've got my yarn!

Whee!!!!

Now all I've got to do is finish a project (any project on the needles), start the shawl knit-a-long and get through the first clue set and then I can cast on this sweater.

Squee!

Night!

Quickie.

Urg. Too much to do now (not really). Busy on ravelry. Knitting black wrap. Started working on second set of endpaper mitts (fingerless mittens)again since I've finally sewn in all the ends on the first pair. . .
Got the first clue for the "Secret of the stole" knitalong and I've still not figured out how to put the button for it on the side - never mind about that. Not cast on the knit-a-long yet. I will in a couple weeks.

*pulls hair out*.

I'll be back at the end of the month. Got entries to type up for another journal.

*sigh*.

Bye. I'm off to do a couple rows on a mitten later.

Shame on me. . .kind of.

I'm smug. Smug, happy and frightened.

I've finally gotten my invite from Ravelry and started my account.

Now I have to fill all those pages with info and facts about my knitting (and crochet bits).

It's going to be fun.
I hope. *grin*.

I'm off to type.

Night.

Well, well, well. . .

I've been knitting every day so far this month.
Knitting little cotton squares in lace or using inartasia (sp?). For the past couple days it's only been one or two, but so far this month, I've managed to knit over 75 little squares of different patterns and colours.

I've also gone and signed up for my first internet knit-a-long group. I think it was because I kept reading journals where the writers were knitting these wonderful things and I wanted to know what it was like.
Anyway, the knit-a-long is "The Secret of the Stole" based at Yahoo groups.
I've got needles, the beads and the yarn.

I'm out of my mind.

I'll either fail, sputtering by the side of the road, my knitting sitting forlornly in a heap, beads scattered underneath, or, I'll be at the end of it squealing, with a blocked stole proudly pictured prettily on this journal.

Let's see what happens.

I'm off to knit a square.

Night.

Just sticking some words in as a light-hearted relaxation from Evolution homework - the last of the semester. Exam at the beginning of October.
Been knitting a few squares for the blanket and taken a brief break from the silk wrap in order to concentrate on the purple wool wrap.

Brain hurts. Since I rarely get headaches, I think I need to go to bed.

Night.

Working on projects

Update on two projects: The black silk wrap and the purple wool serape thing (I forget the name of the garment).
Photos are primarily of the black silk.



I'm 4 skeins into the black silk, with 6 more to go. Whew.
It's knitting with better "milage" to the skein than I thought it would.
On the first skein I got 7", but I'm not even half-way into the 4th and I've got a 26" length. Yes, of course, I should account for the cast-on, but I used a simple lace cast on, so that was minimum usage of yarn. I don't know. Maybe I just had an underweight skein for the first one.


The Purple wrap is now on the penultimate side.







Only one photo for this.

I did attempt taking the cable pattern and running it diagonally across the corner of the left front, but it looks odd (it's that funny puckering). If I had been feeling particularly energetic at the time I discovered the lack of continuous travelling, I'd have ripped it and re-worked it, but I re-thought about what I was doing and I've ended up looking on it as a "living" example of how to really look at the way cables are worked into a garment. *shrug* It's only going to be worn indoors anyway, so I'm not quite that concerned.

So. The other projects are on hold. I want to get both these finished as soon as possible and I'm in the mood to do so.
I'm off to knit.
Later.

Black Silk Scroll Wrap - part 1

Well, after three tries, I've finally started a new project. It's a wrap in black silk (Debbie Bliss pure silk yarn) I've done the swatches in scroll stitch in the previous entry. I thought about it for a few days and finally caved in.

I said three tries? Yes, three. I'm glad I'd decided to work this on bamboo needles beforehand, because this stuff would be slinking off anything else. The first try, I'd cast on too many stitches, so I had to rip. The second try I made a mistake I couldn't fix, so I ripped it again. The third try, I. . .I. . .
I pushed it off the needles thinking I was pushing it on and before I knew it, a third of it was lying in my lap, happily unravelling. So I'm on the fourth attempt and in two days (I knit slow) now just onto the second ball.

One thing I will say about this yarn - it's not consistantly smooth. There are thick and thin sections, albeit short ones, but if you want to use it, try not to use it in stocking stitch. The uneven sections aren't regular enough to make it a design feature. If it wasn't for the fact I like that the pattern hides most of the "funky bits", I LOVE silk and I got this yarn at a 50% discount, I wouldn't use it on a regular basis. Oh - and there is at least one knot per skein. *grr*.

So, here's a couple pictures - oh, before I forget. The yarn is very soft and nicely shiny. In fact, these are scans of the wrap, since I couldn't get a photo. This was due to the gloss. Yes, on here, it does look like plain old wool. It's most emphatically NOT.




















I can't keep from stroking it between rows - then again, like I said before, I'm a silk junkie.
I love wool, hemp, rayon (aka - viscose) and all other natural fibres, but, If it wasn't for the fact I've got a plethora of projects lined up, I'd go out and buy this yarn and knit for the feel of it. I'm glad it's normally £6.50 a skein, which makes it a bit out of my self-imposed price limit.

I'm off to knit my silk. Mmmm.

And another 2 new projects

So, I've now got these 10 skeins of Debbie Bliss' Pure Silk in Black.

Therefore, since I did buy the yarn with a view to making a wrap for choir performances, about a week after I got the yarn, I start making swatches from this blue acrylic I found in a bag (forgotten stash of my Mother's).
I'm really looking for a stitch pattern that looks semi-sophisticated (so to speak), so I'm rationalising that if it looks nice in a mottled soft blue squeaky acrylic yarn, then it'll look good in a lovely black silk yarn *crossing fingers*. I work up and discard half-a-dozen samples (there's 2 that have potential, but I'm not sure. . .).

Then, I go onto the Knitting fool website (http://www.knittingfool.com/) and peruse the stitch patterns on there. I come to "Scroll". I work it up and. . . whee! I like it. I like it so much, I'm now knitting a scarf in it, out of that squeaky blue acrylic.

Here, see what it looks like on both sides.:


I'll see how far I get on this scarf, since I've only got the one ball as seen in the upper photo.


I am, however, planning to knit up a swatch of this stitch with the black silk on smaller needles, and check out definition.

If needed, I'll tweak the stitch pattern and take out a row and stitch in order to make the "blocks" smaller.


I'll post pictures when I get to the silk. Since I need the wrap before November, I'll be starting work on it as soon as I finish the scarf.
Later.

Knitting!

Went and took advantage of the John Lewis sale at Trafford park and bought 10 skeins of some lovely silk yarn. Spent too much money, but it was much too nice to resist - and a VERY good price for the quality. I'm thinking of going back before the 22nd (last day of the sale) and seeing if there's some other yarn I can spend money on.
Yes, there's a new project I'd like to start, but I don't have the yarn for it - it's a lovely sweater by Debbie Bliss in her new "Rialto" pattern book for the wool of the same name. The sweater is called "Sophia" and the main reason I want to knit it can be looked at here:
http://www.kangaroo.uk.com/catalogue/page_detail.php?pId=971&tId=18&stId=1369
The problem is that I do not want to spend the money on the rialto yarn, strictly because I don't like the colours it comes in to use on THIS sweater, so I'm trying to find a substitute that will hopefully be cheaper, as well as in the colour I want
(which I'm having trouble deciding - either a duck-egg blue or a clear soft blue-green. Yes, I know there's not much difference, but I'm picky.).

Recently I worked on a few of the blanket squares and a bit on the fingerless mittens (got some more yarn for a couple more pairs of those as well).
The problem with the knitting at the moment is that my OU homework is now needing more time delegating to it, and that makes my time for knitting suffer.
Not that I've got the wherewithal to knit, since right now (and for now, until the end of October) I'm primarily thinking about harmonising music, brain development and psychology and evolution. *sigh*.

It doesn't help that I've started two journals on Wordpress. Go look if you want to. One'll be found under "The Periodical Mumblings of a Crafter" - it's sort of an experiment. I read enough comments saying how Wordpress is fantastic, so I'm seeing if that's true.

Until such time as I'm in my right mind - or left one.
Bye.

Books

Ok, a couple of days ago, I ran across two sites for collating books. Mainly, the ones that have been read.
The sites were Goodreads and Shelfari. No, I've not linked to them as I'm being lazy - you can easily find them via Google.

I've signed up for both and I MUCH prefer Goodreads. Shelfari is slow and relies on the fact that every single book you input/select is going to recieve a review. That isn't me.

Goodreads is much faster and allows for three categories - read, to read and currently reading. You can input books into your list a few ways, but the quickest is to click upon the star rating system near each title and voila! It's in.

I'd post a button for the goodreads site and my read page, but it requires I know about widget placement and HTML. I'm not there yet and it'll become abundently clear when I am.

Now I just need to find a comparable site for my music.

Later.

Still knitting. . .

Finally, here are a couple pictures.
Sorry about the delay. Just couldn't do it before now. I have got a few pictures of finshed things, but I had no real inclination to wrestle "Hello" to get them into entries.
But, a recent finished project had me a bit more excited than usual, so . . .


The pictures are nothing special. Just a couple photos of green and cream yarn - one, a shot of a nice lace pattern.














But a bit in the future, after I've written it up, I'll explain the thing I'm excited about. The problem is explaining it without letting loose what is knitted. The object is a future Christmas present, so I'd like to keep it a teeny bit of a secret.


By the way, I thought of sharing the results of a non-knitted experiment.
To understand it, you need to know a couple things; one, I don't have a bath - just a shower. - so, I have quite a selection of shower gels to wash with.
The other thing is that usually, in cold weather, or when I've been washing my hands a lot, my hands go dry and I have to put on hand creme (my favourite being Vaseline's Intensive Care - yellow bottle). Now, if I'm washing my hands a lot, putting on hand creme is a bit of a waste. so, the skin on my hands tends to crack and bleed, especially around the knuckles. It takes a few days for that to heal.

Then some time passed. . . So here I was in the bathroom, with this almost empty pump bottle of liquid hand soap, all these shower gel bottles with tiny amounts in them and the idea hit me - why not use shower gel like liquid hand soap? It's concentrated, so you don't need to use a great deal (not a full push on the pump like you would for regular liquid hand soap) some shower gels come in moisturising formulas - which I have some of - and you'd be saving money.
So I tried it.
I decanted all of those little leftover bits of shower gel into the liquid soap container. It made for an interesting smell, but not too bad (I had a small amount of a lemon gel that was a one-off and it made the overall scent slightly weird). There were moisturising elements to some of them, not to mention some of shower gels I had contained essential oils, so there was my anti-bacterial cover.
(most, if not all essential oils have anti-bacterial properties. Especially lavender, patchouli, tea tree, geranium and sandalwood).
I washed my hands with the resulting dark amber-ish goo for about a week.
My skin was lovely. The next week, I had a day where I was washing my hands every 15 minutes. My hands were fine. In the last 6 months of doing this, I've only had to use my hand creme once and that was when I came back from being at a friends for a few days.
My hands are soft and lovely. Scented nicely, too. No cracking skin, my nails are supple, I'm saving money on liquid hand soap and, best of all, I don't have all these mostly empty bottles of shower gel cluttering up my bathroom.
Try it for yourself.

Until then. . .

Another quickie . . .

Frogged the shawl started in the last post and put the yarn and needles for it away for a bit - maybe a week, maybe two - I knitted and re-knitted it and finally realised that I was knitting it wrong.
The corner stitches weren't right, and once I'd fixed those with help of a crochet hook, then other glaring errors came to light. . .

So.

A deep breath and back to my regularly scheduled knitting.

. . .and out.

Quick dash in to drop this off. . .

Well. got some other stuff finished and in progress and started - a bit more than I expected.
Got two more christmas presents done - I figured out a way to photograph them so "some" people don't know what they're looking at, now I just have to do it.

Completed two more blanket squares - since they're VERY small, I'll work on that duing the summer when it's too muggy to do ANYTHING else.

I put the third fingerless mitten on hold. It's safely in the wings, but there's two other things that NEED to be finished before summer is firmly entrenched, complete with stifling humidity and heat. My purple & grey wool wrap (on the penultimate quarter - the left front) and the wool prayer shawl (more than 1/2 finished). I'd put them away until winter comes, but I found a small nest of wool moths in my bedroom carpet and I don't know where they came from - best that I finish the knitting and get them dry cleaned before I find disaster next spring.

Started another project - a shawl I have had in the wings for a while. It's the Spring Blossoms shawl from the Acorn Street Shop seen in some American knitting magazines. VERY pretty (I got the cream version). Not got far into it - just two rows, but even now I'm finding that it's making me sweat. Starting it required learning a tricky technique of casting on (make a loop of yarn and crochet 4 stitches onto it, then pull the short free end to tighten the circle. Put each stitch seperately onto a double point.)

It's also the first time I've used lace-weight wool. It's thin stuff, and I was afraid of breaking it when I pulled it into the circle before seperating the stitches onto double points.

It worked, but. . .*whew*. Fiddly.

Now, I'm off. I want to get back to it in order to get one of the pattern repeats finished before I put it away into brief storage (this one I'm not frightened of since the wool/silk Zephyr yarn never saw the carpet before or after I started it). Yow!

. . .and I'm gone.

Kimono sweater log-jam

Well, I had every intention of working on the kimono sweater this month, but I sort of stopped myself from doing that.
I'm using denise interchangeable needles on the sweater, and I'd taken the needles off the cable a couple months ago and I'm using them on something else.

I could get the needles back from the "something else" project, if only I'd written down or made a simple file note in something on this computer to say what the project was, but, I didn't do that.
So I'm up the proverbial creek wthout a paddle. I'll have to finish a few projects before I know where those particular needles went to, as the denise needles do not have the sizes engraved upon them. The case they come in is imprinted with the sizes at each pair of slots, which is nice, but that doesn't help if the case is nowhere near at hand.

As for the non-existant knowledge of certain old project details/notes? (The problem isn't endemic, but it's there.) Well, I'll definitely fix that in the next couple months. I have to. I normally write down some notes of projects in order to not have the same fiasco happen again.

You'd think I'd learn. I've been crafting for over 30 years and I forget simple things like that. I don't know. I'll now have to make a template for knitting notes *sigh*.

Anyway. In other news, I've started knitting for the Christmas season. I've also made two sets of double-pointed needles in order to facilitate the Christmas season knitting, as I didn't want to either wait for the needles needed, or spent the exorbitant prices asked on the internet for 12 and 13mm double pointed needles (especially the 13mm).
I made mine out of the appropriate sized dowelling (which required a trip to B&Q with a set of callipers and patience, as not all dowelling is the size stated - I learned this the hard way last year.)

So. 12mm and 13mm dowelling was found and purchased for the total sum of £6.
Each piece of dowelling was 2.4 metres long, which I cut (with a hacksaw) 5 pieces off of each size - a total of 10 pieces (5 -12mm and 5 -13mm).
I sanded smooth each piece, then hand cut (with a disposable craft blade) and sanded the points on each end.

They look very nice. I still have to varnish each needle, but I'm already using the 13mm set, knitting shopping bags - they look nice and considering the recent furore in recycling plastic shopping bags and saving the environment, I'm hoping they'll be well received.

I'll be back....
Later.
Got knitting to do. Lots of knitting
. . .eek.

Meme

I don't want to do memes on this, but I couldn't resist. Here it is:


Crafting meme

If you want to be tagged, you're tagged.

Answer honestly.

How many crafts do you actively do?
At the moment? 4. Knitting, beaded crochet, braiding (Japanese and fill-gap) and cross stitching.

How many crafts do you know how to do?
Many. Some of them are. . .
Wood carving, beading (stringing, off loom and loomed), sewing (both hand and machine), embroidery, knitting, crochet, braiding (Western, Japanese, Peruvian, fill-gap and lucetting), cross stitch, Tapestry needlework, weaving (traditional and inkle), spinning (spindle and wheel), glass painting, and origami.
Obviously, I'm never bored for something to do.

Crafting item you use the most?
Mine is my magnifying lens (with inset) on a flexible neck with clamp. I put it away one day and was lost. I use it EVERY day. I bought it over 5 years ago and it's the BEST thing I ever bought. If I see another one, I'll buy it and install it downstairs. The one I have now lives attached to this desk.

Crafting item you use the least?
My thread heaven. I bought it 6 years ago at "the" harrow beading fair, for beading, and I've never used it. If I want to condition thread (a rare thing), I'll use beeswax.

Most important crafting item?
Scissors.
I have a pair of "Dura Sharp" scissors I bought in the mid-eighties to use for hand sewing/clothes making. They cost me a pretty penny at the time ($12 - I was a student and money was tight) and I now have them hanging on a hook within arms reach. I've only had to sharpen them twice in all this time. I use them for projects that I finish at this desk.
I also have many other pairs of scissors (including those specific for the task), all over the house.

Most treasured crafting item?
My antique steel crochet hooks from the US (a few from my grandmother, now dead) and the UK. They're all in tiny sizes not made anymore and I use them for beaded crochet ropes.

Item you'd never part with?
This is a hard one - but I guess that would be my first pair of fiskar embroidery scissors (bought in the late 70's/early 80's.) Only because they've travelled with me for many years.
I'm so afraid of losing that pair in particular, I now buy and use cheap pairs of spring-loaded clip-scissors to use on journeys.

Cheap "impulse buy" item you now wonder how you'd do without?
Ah - that would be those cheap (£1 - 1.50) pairs of spring-loaded clip-scissors with a cover (steel blades, white plastic molding with oval blue insert on the hinge) that you find at most craft fairs - they hold a decent sharpness, are small so they fit anywhere, have a cover so you don't need to worry about puncturing holes in your project or yourself trying to find them, and they're cheap enough you don't fret if you lose them.

Item you have lots of?
Needles. I have hundreds of them from very fine twisted wire beading needles, to tiny quilting needles, dozens of cross stitch needles kept from kits, all the way to plastic yarn needles and large mattress stitching needles (not that I've ever needed to use those.).

Item you only have one of?
That magnifying lens on the flexible neck. Only ever bought one, and then when I wanted another (6 months later), I couldn't find any one that sold them. Still can't. Other single items - Sewing machine, Loom, Spinning wheel and an Tapestry frame holder.

Item you have that you wonder why you bought it?
That would be my tapestry frame holder. I bought it at a time I was doing a lot of stitching sitting on the sofa, used it a while and it gave me horrible back-ache. I could never adjust it for my use (long legs, short body and long neck.), and it has been sitting in the corner of the room gathering dust for the last 5 years. I'm debating how exactly I'm going to get rid of it - since noone I know does needlework - charity, Freeserve, Ebay or just burn it as a sacrifice to bad judgement.

Most expensive item?
My Janome 3000 sewing machine. It was a joint Christmas gift one year from my boyfriend and father and it was expensive at the time even with the part-exchange of my late Mother's industrial singer sewing machine.
I wanted it so much I volunteered to sacrifice three years of gifts from them both - which they bought me anyway. *G*.

Cheapest item?
A free tabletop 4-shaft loom. It was (and is) a wonderful thing.
I also, like many crafters, scavenge materials to make crafting items. I recycle unwanted materials, like very thick cardboard to make braiding card templates or I cut up thinner cardboard from boxes used as packaging to make yarn/thread bobbins for the making of braids; or I'll de-construct old craft items to make new ones - like the gift I got of a wire beading loom that was unstable and unusable, so I cut it apart in order to make hanging hooks for an off-loom bead netting project (still in progress).

The weirdest place(s) you buy crafting materials from?
Any fishing store. I can get tiny solid rings to use in making bracelets and necklaces. I buy fishing cable for stringing, I buy plastic fishing line holders (not reels) to use to use as shuttles for inkle loom weaving (cheap and do the same thing as an expensive weaving shuttle).
The other place is a hardware store - e.g. I buy tiny screw and nut sets to hold the last stitch when I'm not working on a piece of beaded crochet.

How many craft stores do you regularly go to?
Hmm. At this time, about 7. There's the "Sew-in" fabric store in either Chorlton or Didsbury, Kendal Milne's on Deansgate (3rd or 4th floor), Fred Aldous, Abakhan Fabrics, The needlework shop in Lichfield (only one now), the bead shop in Lichfield (there's also only one) and the ARK.
If DESPERATE, I'll go to Hobbycraft, but I'm usually disappointed. Those places are WAY too expensive for what they are and what they could be.
I've just discovered an apparently very well stocked artist's shop off Sackville street and I'm getting ready to check out prices. We'll see if it makes the grade.

Any unsung treasure place you buy materials from?
The ARK in Manchester. It is a wholesale habadashery place that sells dozens of colours (and quite a few sizes) of bonded nylon thread in reels (1000m or more depending on the thickness of the thread) at £6 a reel. They sell ribbons, embroidery thread (not the good companies) for very cheap, have a small stock of Milward knitting needles (from 75p for plain needles to 1.50 for a set of 4 DP's) They sell an amazing amount of cheap stuff, and the only three catches are that: 1) you don't know what will be in stock (one time I went, they had boxes of vintage Coats #8 crochet cotton for $3 a ball - I bought 4 balls, and I'm sorry I didn't have the money to buy any more.). 2) You MUST pay cash. and 3) you have to spend a minimum of £5.
Oh, I forget, you NEED to drive to get there and if you do, the parking is horrendous.

Do you buy from the internet?
Yes. Unfortunately, I have to (I prefer to handle and see items before I buy them). The days of the cheap craft store "on every corner" seems like it's gradually coming to an end in Manchester and I need materials for my projects. About ten years ago, craft/yarn/fabric places were practically everywhere it seems. But they're all closing down one by one. It's very sad and I'm getting very panicky.

How big is your stash of crafting tools?
It's too big. I have one room, three toolchests, two small and two medium holdall bags, 4 boxes, 4 large tupperware containers and a medium cosmetics bag to hold everything I own. I'd be ashamed of the amount, but I know I'm not the only one like this. *smile*.

If you read this and want to fill it out, go ahead - but could you please post a copy of your
answers here as a comment?

Thank you.

Later.

Update - for what it's worth

The knitting on the mittens is continuing.

I have finished one mitten and started the second and a third (the winter pair, made of sock yarn and alpaca). Since starting the winter pair, I have realised that I now need a couple more sets of 2mm and 2.75mm double pointed needles - it's kind of difficult to finish off a mitten (do the ribbing) when you're using that set to start another mitten with.

In lesser notes, I've done a couple squares this month, worked a little on the brown-themed, colour-striped clapotis and did a few rows of the brown wool prayer shawl.

I've come into receipt of some lovely rich procion dyes and next month, I'll get the rest needed to dye the cotton chenille yarn needed to finally finish off the prayer shawl project first started in August 2005. *grin*. . . I guess taking 30 months to complete a knitting project isn't too bad. . .for me.

The silk kimono-style sweater is going to be the main project to work on (no, I'm not going to be so confident and foolish as to think I'll finish it this month) for the month of May. It's about time. It's only been sitting around for a year-and-a-half. At least I've finished the fronts for it. I'm crossing fingers I'll finish the back and maybe I'll be able to start on the sleeves.

The crochet amber-chip necklace is to be finished in August - well, I want to finish it and that seems like a good month - I want a project to take with me to summer school in Durham and it's portable.

Ok, that's enough. I'm sure I have forgotten something, but that's just too bad.

Until next time.

Learning a new knitting technique

I know, the majority of posts seem to be about knitting. Well, that's because I'm trying to get projects finished.

My problem is that I seem to be starting more new projects than finishing old/present ones.

But it's not too bad. It's been bitterly cold this winter - especially hard on my hands this year, and I wanted to find something to make that would help me out. Stop my wrists and knuckles aching so much. I knew I wanted half mittens since I needed freedom of movement. (I had already tried fingerless gloves and found them too restricting.)

So, trawling through some knitting journals, I looked at Eunny Jang's journal, and she'd just put up a pattern for "Endpaper mitts" - fingerless mittens that used stranded colourwork.

They were lovely. Really. I was a bit put off though, as I wasn't really wanting to learn how to do stranded colourwork and the instructions seemed a bit fiddly.

But the cold weather was persisting and my hands were paying the price, so I gathered up all the materials needed (also requiring me buying some more double-pointed kntting needles *darn, shucks*) and started.
Here's what I accomplished by the second day:



Ok, the image of the mitten is a little small, so I'll add a better one.

















The colour balance is actually perfect. With my eyes, though, looking at it, the purple is a bit pinker and the blue is a bit greener.

But here, the colour looks so flat.

Never mind. I'm still feeling chuffed that it looks so good for a first attempt.






I'm now on the 4th day after starting, doing the penultimate stage - the thumb ribbing. After that comes weaving in all the ends.
I should have it finished tomorrow and by the end of the day, I'll be through the wrist ribbing on the second mitten.

I'll post pictures of them both once they've been washed and dried. That should be fun as I'm making the second mitten in the reverse colourway - blue ribbing and the diamond colours the other way around.

I bet I'll get a lot of questions when I wear them.
*grin*

Bye for now.

Whew!

Well, I'm still knitting squares - sort of, as I'm presently in the grip of square lethargy- and I'll stop them at the end of the month so I can get enthused about them again.
I don't think I'll get to 80 as I wanted to, but that's ok. I'll definitely get over half of them finished and that will make me happy.

An old project was restarted in the last week during an emergency trip to Lichfield. I was trying to travel light.
I re-started a leaf lace scarf on 2.75mm needles in sock wool, colourway parrot. I forget the company, but it's a german one and the yarn might be regia.

Hey, I know it's a bit sketchy, but I'm hurrying as I shouldn't really be doing this entry. I'm procrastinating about starting some homework (so what's new. *grin*).

Ok, I'm off. I should be furiously typing elsewhere......
*insincere grumble*.

Later.

Squares, knitting and more squares

Been doing what the title said for the last month an a bit. Knitting squares. Lots of them, it seems like. I've also, to relieve the sometime extreme boredom, done work on a couple other knitting projects (not much, just the odd row or two).

I've completed over 80 squares during February, and hopefully, during March, I'll complete another 80, which will put me well over the half-way mark. *strained cheering*

I've also gotten (and am getting) the componants of 7 other projects ready to start in the month of April - three pairs of half-mittens (free pattern), 2 pairs of socks, a lace sweater and a shopping bag (though this depends upon getting the yarns I want in March).

Ok, I can't type anymore as my fingers are freezing.

G'night.

New - sort of - project

Well, when I finished the first clapotis, I had a bunch of yarn leftover. So, I went through a number of possibilities to see what I could make with the yarn.

But, I always came back to the same thing - another clapotis. It's a nice, non-fussy, moderatly adaptable pattern that takes a minimum of thought.

So, after knitting lots of swatches and finally deciding on a colour pattern - I started it.
I originally wanted a simple scarf, and planned on only 4 increase sections, but, after adding on the sixth repeat of the increase rows, and looking over the pattern, I noticed that if I did one more set of the increase section, I'd be following the original pattern exactly - something I didn't do on the first clapotis.

I'm taking a break from it at the moment (since I've got 6 other knitting projects that are all clamouring for my attention) but when I did, I'd just started on the third section (the length repeats).

The picture is what it looked like just after I made the choice to add the final set of increases and the odd striping is the colours (Fushia, Green, Aqua, Royal blue and Pale blue) done in a fibonacci striping pattern.
Hopefully I'll take a better photo of it when it's longer.

Until later.

Trying to post pictures and. . .

Well, I set up a post that needed a picture. Again, I'm having trouble with putting in the picture. Luckily, I saved the post as a draft, so I'll try again tomorrow.

But, in other news, I've been working on the purple wrap, my prayer shawl, an knitted kitty (nore news on that in few days) and a scarf for a dog. Not that a dog needs a scarf, but his owner says he uses her scarf (the one I knitted her and that she'd like to wear) as a toy. I had some eyelash yarn (ugly varigated colours) leftover from the scarf I knitted her (the colours looked nice as an accent), so I'm using up the yarn by knitting it into a scarf for the dog.

The things I do for a friend. *sigh*

Until tomorrow (cross fingers)

Back Home and posting at LAST!

Well, been in Lichfield again - I actually got home on the 29th of December. This time it was mainly for Christmas, but Christmas was sort of a damp squib.
The kids got lots of presents, but for us adults, it was great when the clock hit midnight on that particular day and the children were finally asleep.

Craft-wise, I worked on a prayer shawl and did quite a few squares for the blanket.

But no photos are available yet, since I'm at the tail-end of a miserable cold I got from my god-daughter.
*sigh*

New Year's Eve was wonderfully free of any drama.
I watched some TV and went to bed early. SO good.

I'm off to bed to see if the last of the dreaded lurgy will go.

Night.