What next?

So, there is my Winter Olympic Knitting medal which I display with pride. I don’t think my smile is as big as Amy Williams’ though!

But what to do next. Well, let’s start with a list:

- Another vest but of my own designing, I unravelled the yarn from ‘Elfin’ back in December and even washed and ball wound it. Since then it’s languished in a bag and the idea has languished in my head.

- The giant pullover for husband. He is so tall and broad of shoulder I can’t do a chunky knit so that’s going to be time consuming!

- socks (actually, there are always socks).

- something for the boy, who has had nothing knitted for him since he was but a babby! I like Mr Boy, but it might be a bit big for him if I got it finished quickly (hahahahaha).

- learn a new skill a.k.a ‘buy a loom’. Oh dear…I think I’ll stop now.

The Finish Line

Made it, complete with Whistler mug bought out there three years ago (I need large amounts of tea at all times):

and I’m really pleased, it fits well and it’s warm. Now I just need a ski trip to go on!

Olympic Winter Knitting 5.

In the knitting eqivalent of not being stuck on the top of a wu tang watching the other three zoom off ahead into well…who knows what can happen in  a Ski Cross race!!  – I think I might finish this by the end of the Games. Whoop!

I had forgotten there was a large ribbing section so I motored away on that this afternoon on my longed for afternoon off (it was supposed to be two days but conferences need stuff, and I have to produce that stuff) which I managed to get today.

Here’s a detail of the rather curly front, it must flatten in blocking surely!:

And of the shoulder area

and of almost the whole thing:

I have a front bit to go, and then you do a pick up and knit session round the arm holes and neck, to neaten it all up. I fear it may be a little short but I think will stretch a lot in the blocking too, it needs to be an over the hips deal for me on all top half garments.

This blue, by the way, is not nearly so bright in real life, it’s a bit more dusky and woodsmokey, and lovely Rowan tweed.

Olympic Winter knitting 4.

I zoned out during the curling (it’s a strangely elegant sport ) and the Ladies Ski Cross was just too distracting to knit through!! But I finished the left front and have done a bit of the back…more later.

Well that won’t have helped…

A day and a half laid flat out with an unidentifiable lurgy – not even able to read, let alone knit – and a whole raft of other things left to do are making me fear for the outcome of my Olympic Knitting. And I had to re knit three rows on Friday night (I was distracted by the thatchers on Mastercrafts)…not very clever!

But a small update, I have reached the bust increases, and have had no lace traumas so far. Photos when I can find my camera.

Olympic Winter Knitting 2.

I have completed the lace border…

…and am now into the main body of this vest.

It’s been pretty good going so far (even with attendant baking for 6 grown ups and two under twos Valentines Tea Party yesterday). There is nothing like a deadline to focus the mind!

I don’t enjoying purling two together through back of loop much. No. And I think 6mm is the maximum size I can cope with my needles being, I wish I could have got gauge on 5.5s

These obstacles are as nothing of course compared to what the skaters must go through to do what they do. The figure skating  is, as usual, astonishing. Alex is not as interested in either thing as I am…

Olympic Winter Knitting – 1

Well I must say, what I saw of the opening ceremony impressed me greatly (can we live up to it in 2012 I wonder?). I had to watch the highlights, and cast on while doing so, on BBC 2 as mothers of small children cannot stay awake until 1.45am and function the next day!

I have done six rows of Talia, there was a period of panic as the whole first row of lace was tinked…but I think I am now ‘in the zone’ .  Here is some lacy border and mountains (Whistler):

And here is my first ‘woolly hat watch’ photo:

Quite a nice one on the head of Kerrin lee Gartner, while she was being interviewed by Claire Baulding at the Gondola station at the bottom of Whistler mountain where the Men’s Downhill was not happening (postponed until Monday).

Happy New Belatedness!

I am back, I have another cold. Will it ever end?

However I managed to not have a cold for the dates 30th December to 2nd January, which was handy as we went to the South Bank Centre for NYE to a big, brilliant, mad, crazy, folky New Year Celebration with a maritime theme (there were lots of pirates, at least five of us wore corsets they are remarkably comfortable but I wouldn’t want to scrub a step in one) all hosted by the lovely Bellowhead, who we’ve been following since they were mere nippers (well, not nippers but since ‘the start’). It was bloody brilliant and more than made up for the three weeks of misery before Christmas!

The red scarf/shawl goes on:

I can’t count and thought I was doing three yos each RS row, but if course it’s FOUR (dunce!) so last night I ripped out about 2 and a half inches of it and then soldiered on again. I am at the garter eyelet ridge:

but didn’t have it finished before truly Alaskan conditions set in (a foot of snow here in Oxfordshire).

I think it’ll be lovely!

Showing interest in yarn may be a sign of improvement…

A long time ago I bought some lovely yarn in a  lovely yarn  shop in Seattle called So Much Yarn (there was, I could have stayed in there for days, but my husband would have objected, even though he appreciated the comfy sofa they provided for the non knitterly partners of shoppers).

Anyway, this yarn – Mountain Colors Handpainted -  has sat in the cupboard for the past 4 (?) years waiting for the pattern I need to leap from the internet and into my Ravelry queue.  And today it did, via the blog of Ysolda.

I think this shawl pattern by Rainy Day Goods is perfect for my Ruby River yarn, it’ll show off the variegated handpaintedness perfectly I think:

Huge picture but a bit less crap than the last few!  There was day light, and also, I have a very clean floor (I’m trying to rid the house of the pestilence and disease).

Poorliness and a hat

We have all been (and still are) very poorly. The MOST AWFUL PART of this situation was Alex being ambulanced to hospital on Monday teatime with suspected meningitis, he’d had a really bad virus for almost a week and then I spotted a rash. Luckily it wasn’t the awful M, but I was beside myself and we spent the night in hospital, not a pleasant experience for either of us I can tell you.  Anyway he’s on the mend having been antibiotic-ed to the eyeballs.

I can’t help thinking that if he’s been able to see a doctor a week earlier, rather than being diagnosed with swine flu over the phone (grrrrrrr my contempt for NHS Direct, and the forces which led to it’s existence,  is pretty high right now) he wouldn’t have got so ill. But that’s probably a rant for elsewhere.

So there’s been not much knitting – good job I had no big Christmas knits planned! But here is the lovely hat I finished last week (yet again awful photos!):

It’s Tempos Headcoat (Ravelry link). The peak is made of plastic bottle, and it was a bit of a nightmare. It was fiddly anyway and I think because the plastic bottles are now so thin they bend a lot and it was difficult to finish knitting it into the cover. So if I made another I might use a baseball hat peak (as I saw someone else has done, but I can’t find the blog now!). Perhaps the difficulty of peak making is why so many hats are tams and berets! However if I wear one of those I look like Victoria Wood’s ‘Kimberly’ character…not a good look.

I was a bit scared of the icord cast on and ribbed increases at first, but now I am addicted! It’s like magic.

And here is Bucephalus modelling it (not very well but he has a wooden horse’s head and not a human head, so it’s hardly surprising):

I knit it in Jaeger Extra Fine Merino, can’t remember the colour but it’s discontinued anyway,  on my posh expensive KnitPicks (KnitPro or whatever they’re called here) circulars, and  my non posh inexpensive Pony aluminium DPNs. I found the pattern was a bit confusing to read through but, as ever, once I started knitting it made perfect sense!

I think I’ll make more of these, and also might try adding a peak to some of the lovely tam patterns out there (particularly Kate Davies Dollheid or Neepheid, I do love her patterns!) as otherwise I’ll never get to wear them.