Oh, many things…and some LACE

Not been in for a while have I…What have I been doing…?

Well, I made it through another Oxford Folk Festival – possibly the best we’ve done so far despite last minute panics, an act not being able to get there due to volcanic ash, and heroic efforts on the part of a drummer friend to get back  from Spain, overland, in time for his band’s set (journey done with half an hour to spare).

We went off on our first proper holiday – to Northumberland –  in our Camper.  That was an experience, I spent a lot of time writing lists of things we didn’t have and having ideas about decorating the functional but boring insides of the van. I did no knitting whatsoever despite having the delusion that I would get 3 pairs of socks completed *easily*. Alex loved it, but decided he would like to stay up until 11pm every night, while we took refuge in Farne Island beer and Alnwick Rum.

I walked 26 miles of Moonwalk through fair London town, at night, in my bra…our team raised well over £1,000…I didn’t take my knitting with me or it would have taken even longer than the 10 1/2 hours it took us to finish I think. We did do some morris dancing at mile 24 though.

N has been off working in the U.S. a fair bit. Single parenting is a bit tiring - I have to say I have utmost admiration for those who do it all the time! But since I had several evenings of being ‘trapped’ in the house I decided to tackle the *lace fear* yet again.

Having had a very large argument (including swearing, doubting own sanity and etc) with the Starfish Shawl from Knitting Nature (whereupon my online researches turned up that there are errata in many of the patterns, grumble) I found Gnarled Oakwoods in the Twist Collective.

It has written instructions, hurrah! I only had two aborted cast on and first few rows incidents, hurrah, hurrah!. Here is the beginning of the leaf pattern, but I am now on repeat two of the vine for the first half of the stole:

I am knitting this with YARN FROM MY STASH hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! It’s Rowan Rowanspun 4 ply I’ve had for <cough> four? years.

I am more convinced than ever, though, that charted lace is not for me (I’m beginning to think it goes along with Marmite, olives and Guinness in the love/hate stakes). This pattern has the written instructions in newspaper style columns (so is very easy to follow) so with a couple of Post Its I can easily isolate the bit I’m doing and ignore the rest. So far, it’s been a breeze (through the trees!)

What to knit next…part two

I seem to have stalled somewhat, and I could spend all the time I am loom-stalking doing some knitting instead. And, look!, here is a new ‘Knitty‘ for inspiration!

Well…

…it definately won’t be this: gams

I very rarely have a ‘WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???!!! moment these days (I put it down to some mellowing on my part and a lot of time spent with contemporary art)….but….is this part of the ‘fugly’ trend that has passed me  by? They look like the knitted nappy covers I never made.

Meanwhile, back in my comfort zone:

I like this:  Summit and this: Anthemion A LOT. I have had no huge scarf/shawl on the needles since the epic winter 6 footer. And I think my vintage yarn stash could lend itself to either of them.

And I like the idea of this: Inamorata . I love the body part of it, but a square neckline on me is a big no no…hmmm.

Olympic Winter Knitting 3.

After the Saturday spent mostly lying on my back feeling like I wanted to DIE, I actually felt a bit better on Sunday, and was well enought to take up the needles (if not the chocolate biscuits) by the afternoon.  I got quite a lot done during Larkrise to Candleford (which is not a taxing watch) and even some during the Ski Cross coverage, when I wasn’t thinking “They must be absoloutely bonkers…”. Worryingly, my husband was standing watching it saying ‘I’d quite like to have a go at that’. 

I got nearly as far as the armholes, here is the bottom border. It curls a bit at the moment which I hope will stop when it’s blocked:

And a bottom corner:

I would be steaming ahead if I hadn’t had to tink and re knit 3 rows due to a brain/pattern interface error. 

 I was very pleased to see Canada have won the ice dance, I must go and watch it (their Flamenco compulsary was amazing!).

A Pattern, Some Yarn and 17 Days

Here’s my Olympic Knitting:

I have even done a swatch. A good thing because I found I needed to go up a size to get the right gauge. I have to say McADirect are amazingly fast shippers (and it’s free too for orders over £10) it got from Scotland to Oxfordshire overnight, and I only bought it at lunchtime on Wednesday.

Also, I finished the Simple Things shawl aaaaaaages ago, and I’m really pleased with it. It’s warm and cosy which has been just the thing for the recent weather!:

Mountain Colors 4/8s wool in Ruby River

Vancouver 2010, I’ve skiied down that hill you know…

On the whole I pretty much have no time for competitive sport of any kind, any “so, did you see the match last night…” opening conversational gambits from strangers or mild aquaintances are pretty much lost on me.

But I make an exception for anything involving ice and snow – yes, even the ‘sliding down hill on a tea tray’ and ‘sweeping ice with a broom while trying not quite to hit one stone with another’ events have me gripped!

this is me near Whistler in 2006 (I think) and in a Woolly Wormhead Tri Peak Hat too!

So the Winter Olympics are much anticipated. especially since I may have skiied down hills nearby some of the very hills to be skiied down by world champions! And I LOVE watching figure skating. Love it.

This year I’m going to set a challenge for myself too. Since I am never in my wildest dreams going to be Jayne Torvill (I never saw her hanging to the side barrier in desperation) the challenge is a woolly one…I’ve chosen my pattern for the Yarn Harlot’s Knitting Olympics. I just hope I’m allowed to cast on in Canadian  Opening Ceremony time rather than UK Opening Ceremony time, i.e. – 1.45 A.M…

Blimey, a(n) F.O.!

So what with the little chap, and the cleaning and the food providing, and the working, and the festival, and the melodeon sitting there making me feel guilty and the everythingelseIhavetodo my knitting time has been considerably eaten into compared to pre-motherhood days.

The thought of taking on  a huge project (like the husband sized jumper I have promised - I even got yarn samples from New Lanark Mills!) is truly a bit overwhelming.

So, as a kind of warm up (heh!) and prompted by the Knitty surprise in the ‘Fall’ 09 issue Idecided some Just One More Row arm warmers were the order of the day.  ‘Tangy’ seemed just about right, I wanted a bit of brain work, and, Oh, I do love a cable! I did have to mark the 12 stitch repeat though, the ‘staggered’ nature of it was a little confusing. Here’s the result:

Knitted in Jaeger Extra Fine Merino Aran (very, very sadly discontinued) on 4mm needles, in Wineberry.

I have quite big hands, but the Aran meant  I cast on only 48 stitches and I ‘one more rowed’ until I had 11 rows at the finish. The Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off is, actually, brilliant. I think these took about 3 hours each, so a quick fix – and the knitting mojo is back*!

Despite the aforementioned husband finding the idea of ‘handless gloves’ tremendously amusing they actually do keep a person quite warm and I’ll keep wearing them whatever sniggering takes place.

*This is actually rather worrying, since I found out the other day Ms Fyberspates trades approximately 20 miles away from my stash…

Bag of Tees

I started what I’ve christened ‘The Bag of Tees’  today, with a band of purple stuff, the history of which is as follows.

Originally born as  a white vest top from People Tree, it then became a purple vest top (after I’d spilt things on it and it had to be dyed to be wearable, I never learn) but then it started looking a bit sad and saggy due to pregnancy wear, and now it’s be the top bit of my bag. How eco friendly am I (apart from the chemical dye, sigh) and also Fair Trady!

I cast on about 60 stitches:

I even kept the label fastened on from its days as a vest top, so I’ll be able to recall its history once it’s a bag.

I’ve done two rows of ribbing (because I bet even T shirt material stocking stitch curls…). I’ll carry on knitting round and round until I get to an OK kind of depth, and then I think I’ll start to do a ‘star toe’ decrease to get the bowl shape at the bottom. I’ll also decide at the end if I want the RS or WS to be the outside of the bag…not sure yet.

The good thing about doing it in the round is that ’round’ is also bag shaped (for the style of bag I’m making) so I kind of know how big a mouth it’ll have:

I need to carry on, and also need to cut up some more clothes.

Yesterday, of course, PANCAKES!. In fact we had pancake enchiladas as there were leftovers to use up, and nothing is better for a leftover than a tin of tomatoes and some cheese sauce. Most of my pancakes were pretty good I think:

BUT some were Mutant Pancakes from the planet Dribulous (the most annoying thing is that I KNOW how to do it properly!):

I mean, what on earth is THAT? !!

A meme

Found this on Kate’s (and then Kai‘s) blog. And since I (and the boy) have been suffering the dreaded winter lurgy (really, you don’t need any more information) it’s about all I’ve done knitting wise in the past five days. Oh, and I’m typing this on my new and very shiny PC

Afghan
American/English knitting
Baby items
Bobbles
Buttonholes
Cable stitch patterns
Cardigan
Charity knitting
Combination knitting
Continental knitting
Cuffs/fingerless mits/arm-warmers
Darning
Designing knitted garments
Domino knitting
Drop stitch patterns
Dyeing spinning fiber
Dyeing with plant colors
Dying yarn
Entrelac
Fair Isle knitting
Free-form knitting
Fulling/felting
Garter stitch
Gloves
Graffiti knitting
Hair accessories
Hats: Cuff-up
Hats: Top-down
Holiday related knitting
Household items
I-cord
Intarsia
Jewelry
Kitchener stitch
Knitted flowers
Knitting a gift
Knitting a pattern from an on-line knitting magazine
Knitting and purling backwards
Knitting art
Knitting for a living
Knitting for pets
Knitting for preemies
Knitting in public
Knitting items for a wedding
Knitting on a loom
Knitting smocking
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on one or two circulars
Knitting to make money
Knitting two socks on two circulars simultaneously
Knitting with alpaca
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Knitting with beads
Knitting with camel yarn
Knitting with cashmere
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with cotton
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Knitting with dpns
Knitting with linen
Knitting with metal wire
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Knitting with self patterning/self striping/variegated yarn
Knitting with silk
Knitting with someone else’s hand-spun yarn
Knitting with soy yarn
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Knitting with wool
Knitting with your own hand-spun yarn
Lace patterns
Long Tail CO
Machine knitting
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Moebius band knitting
Norwegian knitting
Participate in an exchange
Participating in a KAL
Pillows
Publishing a knitting book
Purses/bags
Rug
Scarf
Shawl
Short rows
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Slip stitch patterns
Slippers
Socks: toe-up
Socks: top-down
Steeks
Stockinette stitch
Stuffed toys
Swatching
Sweater
Tassels
Teaching a child to knit
Teaching a male how to knit
Textured knitting
Thrummed knitting
Toy/doll clothing
Tubular CO
Twisted stitch patterns
Two end knitting
Writing a pattern

Steeking, kind of

So I made this black and white jumper for the little chap with the apparantly oversized head. As I feared, it didn’t go over said head for very much longer after I’d finished the dratted thing. However, so proud am I of the stranding that I couldn’t bear to rip it all out and make something new. I decided to make it into a cardigan.

I doubt this counts as proper steeking, what with it being totally unplanned. But I cut up my knitting and survived, so I wanted to share it with you.

I did the crochet thing (as detailed here by Eunny Yang) and then cut up the middle of the crocheted bits:

I left a row of knitting in between. It seems to have held up quite well, but just to be on the safe side I also machine stitched down both sides as well:

Chopped

Of course now I need to put in a zip (!). Which is even scarier than cutting up your knitting, I reckon. I hope young chaps are not bothered about bumpy zip front syndrome in the same way thier mothers are.

Not that I can go out an buy a zip even if I wanted to, I tried to push the buggy up the path the other day and realied why northern peoples are so fond of the sledges and skidoos.

Stormwater Shawl

I have been knitting this for TWO years. I checked on Ravelry. But now it is finished and very lovely it is too.

Which is more than can be said for the Tesco child’s playmat with cut out letters (no, I did not realise this at the time of purchase) I blocked it on:

I should have put it all the way to the top of the bed, but anyway, it got blocked. Lace really does get very much bigger, doesn’t it?

And here it is in close up (this is the good bit, not the bit I did two years ago when I was very confused and it was snowing):

Here it is pretending to be a waterfall:

And here trying to steal the limelight from our sculpture (it’s an Austin Wright, a contemporary of Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and so on, and also a relation of N’s). That sculpture is about eight feet tall, if you want a sense of scale.

I shall be wearing this to the wedding we’re off to in February. Even if it’s freezing cold, oh yes, I have to show it off!