Knitpicks

I am ok, but haven't had time to blog because work is busy and I have other things to do with my free time. But today I am feeling ill which made me pretty unproductive. As a result, I'm blogging.

Not that there is much to say knitting wise. I have lots of WIPs. I finished a couple of smaller things over the last month, but nothing overly exciting. The scarf I made out of malabrigo is absolutely yummy.

Today I finally ordered yarn from knitpicks for the first time. They don't deliver to the UK, but we are doing a joint order through ravelry through one of the groups there. I bought quite a bit of fingering weight yarn. I was disappointed because they were out of so many colours of Palette, but I picked two colours to make the Endpaper mitts. Then I picked some Gloss in cocoa that should complement a yarn I already have to make this cowl. (Isn't the pattern just gorgeous?) I also got some gloss to make Nancy Bush's Evening stockings in red. That is something I've been planning to make for a while, and even if I decide that I don't like Gloss as a sock yarn, I can still knit a little shawl or scarf out of it. Opinion on ravelry seems to be divided as to how good Gloss is as a sock yarn. And then I got enough of Gloss for a pair of socks in the pumpkin colourway. I've been wanting some orange sock yarn for a while now and I'll probably cast on with that as soon as it gets here. Overall, I've been pretty disciplined. I didn't buy anything that wasn't on my shopping list for my queue.

I'll post again if I actually manage to finish any interesting projects.

The real WIP

My thesis is nearing completion. I am nearing complete exhaustion...


I have been knitting though (and checking ravelry) as a way to relax a little bit. I've got quite a few works in progress, most of them stuck on one thing or another. So I am going to cast on yet another sock tonight...

I did have to finish these baby booties for tiny baby Calvin.


They took about an hour to knit and longer than that to finish. So much sewing for such a tiny thing! Next time I'll try the seamless version.

Pattern: Saartje's booties
Yarn: Fyberspates Merino Sock Yarn
Ravelled here.

To the neighbour whose car alarm keeps going off

Dear neighbour.

Your car alarm has been going off in the car park for a week now and it is rather loud. You know about this, since I contacted the management company of the apartment block repeatedly and they have talked to you, repeatedly. And I am not the kind who normally complains to them about anything.

Your car is in a secure car park with security cameras. No one is trying to steal it. Yet, you choose to just leave it there with the alarm on. You live on the other side of the building and do not work from home in any case, so why should it bother you?

Have I mentioned yet how annoying it is to work with earplugs in my ears, especially when I have a cold? (Insert Darth Vader breathing noise here.) And that car alarm - congratulations, I think you've chosen the loudest model on the market. I can't even keep my windows open.

To be honest, I wish someone would steal your car. At least then it would be quiet.

I am not kidding you - this woman has left her broken car alarm on for a week. It keeps turning on and off randomly. And it's not as if she doesn't know about it.

Rant over. Now back to work.

Boston yarn party

I went to Boston for a conference last week and couldn't resist the opportunity to buy some more yarn. I did my yarn shopping at Windsor button, which had a great selection, reasonable prices and friendly staff. Everything a girl needs! Overall, I was reasonably restrained. This is what I bought:


I bought a skein of Malabrigo worsted and I already cast on a scarf out of it. It really is as nice as everyone says - I'll be definitely buying more!

The rest is all sock yarn: Plymouth Happy Feet, Mountain Colours Bearfoot and Claudia Hand-painted. I can't wait to knit with them all! I am a bit concerned that the Happy Feet will pool, but we'll see. I am especially In love with the Mountain Colours. It is a colourway called Lodgegrass and even though it is not the kind of colourway I would normally go for, I fell in love with it. It is a mix of blues and grays and oranges. Not sure what I'll make out of it, but I like looking at it!

Since I got home I haven't been doing much knitting. I am very busy with work and now I even have a horrible cold. I have made a little progress on my cardigan, but not much.

I leave you with a picture of the ducklings in Boston's Public Gardens.

Work in Progress

I have been strangely monogamous in my knitting lately. I have quite a few WIPs and a couple of things in my queue I have the yarn for, but most of the time I have been working on a shawl I am knitting for my mom for Christmas. It is the arctic diamonds shawl from an old issue of interweave knits and I find the combination of the cashmere yarn and the pattern rather enjoyable. Still, it's a very slow process and I am only about a third of the way there. I figure I may as well keep working pretty much exclusively on this one while I'm still enjoying it.

There are a couple of things that just need finishing. I knit a pair of Saartje's booties for a friend's baby yesterday evening and I have made a mesh market bag a few weeks ago that needs to be finished.

Now that I have finished my latest pair of socks, there are a couple of contenders to replace it as my tv knitting. I cast on a little mobius shawl out of some 4-ply alpaca, but I don't like working with the yarn. It is lovely and soft, but it makes my fingers itch after a while. There are always the socks I started for mom earlier this year, although I still don't know her shoe size. Or I could cast on for a new pair of socks. Or I could just get started on one of the jumpers and cardigans in my queue...

And of course, there's my WIP from hell - a cotton tank top I designed based on a vintage Hungarian pattern. I put way too much work into it to just frog it or throw it away, but I think it will be a while before I pick it up again.

FO: Nearly Monkeys

I finished these socks this morning and am very pleased with them. I knit most of these during my holiday, so apart from being pretty they will also bring back fond memories. I thought this yarn would be nice for a pair of stockinette socks and I added a lace panel at the side to keep things a bit more interesting. I chose them from one of my Harmony stitch libraries. The one on the right foot is basically the same as the lace in the Monkey socks, another pattern I was thinking of knitting this summer. But I realised that I just didn't like that pattern enough, no matter how popular it is... So instead, I have my Nearly Monkeys.
I wanted to try the eye of the partridge heel on these socks. In retrospect they would have looked nicer with a slipped stitch heel. Another thing I would change would be to add three rows of garter stitch to mark where the toes start and break up the stockinette a little. I'm just glad there was no annoying pooling going on.


Pattern: My own.
Yarn: Fyberspates Merino Sock Yarn, colourway 'low tide'. I love the way they go with jeans!
Needles: 2.25mm, double pointed

For times when I I hate my PhD

If you type 'I hate my PhD' into Google this site comes up and cheers you up instantly. Who wouldn't be with lines like:

"There are of course several methods of stress relief to be tried -- popular ones include Staring Out of Windows and Watching Old Black and White Films. Obviously with minimum effort you can combine these with Eating Chocolate for a previously unprecedented amount of stress relief."

I think yarn is my chocolate. But I'll go have some actual chocolate now.

Rain and more rain

So after the last post I realised that I made a mistake in the summer top I wanted to finish by this week. I couldn't face frogging and re-knitting, so I put it away for a while. It looks fine up to the point where I divide it for the armholes, but at this stage I don't feel at all motivated to finish it.

Partly, because the weather has turned autumnal already in London. So far, we had about a week of summer weather this year. Which means that I am now suddenly very keen to get started on a pair of gloves. Or a hat. Or a scarf.

The closer I get to finishing my PhD (less than two months to go!) the more obsessed I am getting with knitting. I seem to spend every spare minute either knitting or looking for patterns to knit up my stash. I have been working on my latest pair of socks and my mom's Christmas gift lately. I am enjoying both a lot. I really want to finish the socks soon and the shawl is just a lot of fun to knit.

Holiday tank on holiday

I did manage to finish my linen tank top on time for our vacation. We had a lovely two weeks diving in the Maldives and the top proved to be perfectly wearable. I tried to get my husband to take some pictures of it for me, but I'm afraid they didn't really focus on my knitting... Here is the best one of the lot, but even this isn't so great. As you can see, it is just perfect with bikinis and shorts!


Pattern: Ribs and Lace Tank, Interweave Knits Spring 2007
Yarn: Garnstudio Bomull-lin (6 balls)
Needles: 4.5mm & 3mm - I used much smaller needles than specified by the pattern

I really liked knitting with linen, although it wasn't easy on my hands. This would have been a quick knit if it wasn't for the fact that at first I used needles that were too large and had to frog a lot before I finally faced up to the fact that I was producing a tent, not a tank top. My tension is a bit uneven on the rib part, even though it is fine on the lace / stockinette part, but it's not too bad.

As much as this was a fun project, I am not sure I will be knitting anything anytime soon that I can only wear when on holiday. I just can't see myself wearing this in London more than once a year...



On that note, I will leave you with some pictures of fish. My husband has taken quite a few good ones, but some need editing as it is hard to get the colours right underwater...

Batfish. These guys are so friendly and curious, they'll swim right into your face!


By far the best shot of me underwater so far. I'm pleased!

Shark, hunting. I love sharks, they move so gracefully. In case you are wondering, this guy wasn't lucky, at least not while we were watching.

July sock yarn

I can barely believe it is alreasy July! I ordered my July sock yarn a bit early and already got it in the mail last week. It is from a company called Angels and Elephants that sell on ebay. The Colourway is called Zennor and is absolutely gorgeous! The colours are even more beautiful than they were in the pictures. Of course I don't know yet how it knits up...



I also bought The Knitter's Book of Yarn recently. I am absolutely in love with that book. All the information on yarn is great and even the patterns are quite good. Anyway, I used the methods from the book to look at this yarn. The bits of wool in it are quite long and curly, so it should make durable socks, I think. It is fairly soft (softer than the Noro Kureyon sock yarn), but not so soft that I would want to use it for scarves of baby clothes myself. But it should work just fine for socks. My only complaint is that whatever they washed the skein with after dying has a strong soapy smell. I don't have any plans for it yet, so it's going into my stash for a little while. I hope it will knit up nicely!

I also got some half-rice yarn in the sale at John Lewis; Debbie Bliss Cathay in a beutiful ivory colour. It is screaming to be knit into a cardigan - if only I could decide on the pattern! I also got some Rowan 4ply cotton, because the colour was lovely, but I am considering the so far unprecedented step of taking it back, simply because I already have two sweater's worth of 4ply cotton from when Jaeger Siena was discontinued. Given that they are a huge department store and I shop there a lot, I wouldn't feel partiularly guilty.

Now back to work... I was going to write and watch Wimbledon this afternoon, but it is raining, so the BBC has an 'isn't Tim Henman fantastic and now he works for us' feature on instead... Apparently they are going to put a retractable roof on Centre Court. About time, I should say. I wish they played at night, like at the US Open. Who can really watch tv in the afternoon?

I need a holiday

I wasn't going to talk about work on this blog, but now I am doing it anyway. I have been feeling really run-down and unproductive these last few days. I am struggling to get anything done. Despite the fact I am doing my best to ban myself on the internet, I seem to be reading the news or blogs or whatever and I barely even know how I got there from working on my chapter. I just need to finish this bloody chapter, it is only about 1000, maybe 1500 words more. I tell myself that the important thing now is to get all the content down coherently, I can add citations and nice little filler sentences and all the trimmings later, since I will have a few weeks to edit this chapter. But I just can't concentrate.

By the way, I did frog and re-start the stupid linen tank. Now I am getting the right gauge. I really love the yarn, but it's starting to hurt my hands.

Denial

Last Monday I got the irrepressible urge to knit this Rib and Lace Tank from the spring 07 issue of IK for our upcoming holiday. I was thinking about knitting it before, but suddenly I thought: wouldn't this just be the perfect thing to wear on an evening on the beach?



I already had a yarn in mind for this, Garnstudio Bomull-lin, so I ordered it. It got here on Wednesday already and I knit a swatch in the rib pattern. I even washed it. The gauge worked out, so I cast on on Thursday. But I didn't do a swatch for the lace pattern, only the rib... Can you guess what's coming?

I originally cast on with the 6mm needles specified by the pattern, but decided to move down to 5.5mm. I had a cold over the weekend and wasn't concentrating properly, so I had to rip the feather and fan lace at the bottom back twice. Then things started to speed up when I reached the ladder lace. However, I cannot live in denial anymore. My gauge is off. You could fit a much much larger person into this top than I am. It looks more like a dress than a tank top...

Now I am trying to decide whether to rip back and start again. I still like the pattern. I really like the yarn. It is quite stiff when you work with it, but my swatch softened up already after just one wash. The fabric is fairly drapey and I just like the feel of the linen.

I should still be able to finish this on time for our holiday, even if I do rip back. But it's such a pain, re-knitting the lace at the bottom again...

Sock yarn of the month

I love hand-dyed sock yarn. I love looking at the different colours that are out there. But instead of joining a sock club, I thought I could do my own thing instead and try a different yarn company each month. This month's yarn is from Fyberspates.


It's in a colourway called 'low tide'. I thought the green would be a bit darker and when I opened the package, I was a bit unsure at first, but by the time I wound the yarn into balls, I really liked it. I can't wait to cast on with it and I think given the length of each colour block it should stripe, rather than pool. I can't capture the colour very well - it is less blue in reality.

I bought some other yarn as well and I am thinking going on a yarn diet. Not a full-blown one, but just stick to my sock yarn of the month for a while maybe. And of course yarn for the Christmas gifts I have planned (I know it's crazy, but I got to start by the middle of summer, otherwise I will not be finished with them on time!). The summer sales and my trip to the states are both coming up, both of which are likely to result in buying more yarn... But the flat is slowly being taken over by yarn and my knitting, not to mention the amount of money I've been spending.

Weekend Pullover

Finally, a finished sweater. May I present to you, the weekend pullover:


Pattern: Placed Cable Aran from IK Fall 2007.
Yarn: I got this yarn as a gift from my mom last autumn. It is a bit of a mystery yarn - the label calls is HRK Petra, and as it was made in Turkey, I was wondering if it is left over from a factory that makes yarn for some of the bigger companies. It is a wool/acrylic mix, which is very typical of my mom. She always maintained that she did not like knitting with wool. I found out from my dad that the reason was that she accidentally felted multiple non-superwash fair isle wool sweaters in the washing machine. In any case, the yarn is really soft - I hope it will breathe well, that's my only concern. When I managed to buy a copy of last fall's IK a month or two ago, I thought of this yarn as soon as I saw this pattern.
Price: the yarn was a gift, so £0.
Needles: 5.5mm Addi Turbos.
Modifications: Knit in the round up to the armholes. Based on the advice on ravelry, I added an inch or two to the body of the sweater and a p1k1 row about an inch from the bottom to stop the stockinette from curling too much. I do like the curled bottom edge though, so I wasn't going to add a ribbed edge. I picked up the stitches for the sleeves from the body and knit them in the round from the top down with magic loop. I also lengthened the sleeves compared to the pattern, but this was easy, as I just tried the sweater on as I went along.
Verdict: All my store-bought sweaters have set-in sleeves and I hate turtlenecks. The reason I picked a drop-sleeve sweater with a cowl neck is that I wanted something different. And I think it looks super cute in that wear on the weekend, go to the grocery store, laze on the sofa kind of way. This is the first sweater I knit since my less successful efforts when I first learnt knitting. Not only is this one wearable - it is wearable outside the house, in public. I am pleased. And it was fun and easy to make. If I didn't have three other projects on the needles, I would have finished it really quickly too.


I finished this yesterday and Gerald took some photos for me. But I have a horrible cold that started last night, so I didn't have the energy to post the photos online. Instead I finished the leg on Roza's socks. I can't wait to finish those and start another pair of socks. Apart from the cold, I had a really productive weekend, cleaning around the house, doing errands and finishing my sweater!

Lifetime supply of acrylic

First off, I finally managed to bring myself to finish my green scarf. I couldn't get a good shot of the whole scarf, but here's a close-up of the lace.


Th yarn is Stroud Wool Socrates Supermerino-Bamboo-Silk from Violetgreen. I used two very similar colours of green, as I originally only ordered 100g for a pair of socks but decided to use it for a scarf instead and by then they did not have the original colourway. But I changed colours every few rows and it is barely noticeable. My husband didn't like the colour, but I think it's quite nice for the spring. The pattern is from Victorian Lace Today and I worked the main part of the scarf in slip-stitch pattern, which, needless to say, mad it very boring. Still, it's done now. It is not a favourite, but it turned out ok.

This weekend I decided to start turning what I call my 'lifetime supply of acrylics' from this:



Into this:
I think I originally bought the acrylic to knit golf club covers as a gift for a friend who took up golf. I never knit them and she hasn't played golf in over a year, so no loss there... The yarn is Sirdar Wash'nWear DK in black and baby blue and despite being acrylic it is not bad to knit with. I knit a couple of simple scrubbie-type things. I started using one in the kitchen and I hope it won't fall apart too quickly. My husband is making fun of me knitting a sponge, but it looks cuter than the store-bought ones and is super-quick to make.

I also read the Diving-Bell and the Butterfly this weekend for my book club. It was really short, but I didn't find it very engaging. Obviously, I feel sorry for the main character, but that doesn't make the book a literary success for me.

Roza's socks nr. 1

I have finally managed to finish something, even if it just the first of a pair of socks. The pattern is Roza's socks from Interweave Knits and the yarn is Arauncania Ranco Solid. I am going to cast on tonight to avoid second-sock syndrome, although now that I have the first sock I am really keen to knit the second one. The yarn is really nice to work with and the colour's great - it goes well with jeans!. The brioche rib pattern, however, does get a bit boring. This was the first time I felt completely comfortable with the kitchener's stitch.


I also started swatching for one of my bigger projects; the Debbie Bliss cardigan. I hate swatching when I am really really keen to cast on - I feel like I'm being held back from really starting. The yarn is a DK weight merino from Colourmart. It comes on cones, still oiled. It is a bit splitty, but should be nice to knit with if I use my Addi lace needles. It feels more like 4-ply when it's on the cone, but blooms absolutely beautifully when washed. I adore the colour and my gauge is fine too. This should be a really beautiful cardigan for next autumn!




I also bought some yarn for the printed silk cardigan. I really want to knit this pattern, but I had the hardest time choosing the yarn for it. A pair of earrings and my new Banana Republic dress inspired me to knit it in burnt orange, but I just couldn't find the right thing. So I bought some cotton-cashmere off Colourmart on impulse. It was a bit more than I budgeted, but not much more. The colour is definitely lighter than I thought it would be - the colourway was called terracotta. Still, I think I'll keep it. I have kept a cone on my coffee table since Monday, when it arrived, and the colour is definitely growing on me. It also looks nice with the Banana Republic dress... I'm just worried that it won't go well with my complexion. I should knit up a swatch and see how the colour and texture change when I wash it.


I also bought some cashcotton DK off ebay when I was researching yarn for different projects. I was initially worried about the colour, but it is gorgeous. First I thought I'd use it for the dollar and a half cardigan, now I'm not so sure. I also bought some cashcotton 4-ply from stash, because it was cheap. So this month was a bit of a cashcotton month and I overindulged on yarn again. I am still thinking of picking up some discontinued Jaeger merino while there is still some around - it is really cheap. Oh and I picked out the yarn one more summer project that

Knitting progress

My 4ply summer top is progressing slowly but steadily. I am hoping that it will be done by mid-June at the latest, which means I should be able to get quite a bit of wear out of it this summer (assuming it will look good enough to wear in public, which at the moment it looks like it will).

The placed cable aran sweater is progressing much faster of course. I'm enjoying knitting with aran yarn after all my 4ply projects. But as to be honest, I haven't had that much time to knit over the last few weeks, I'm only up to the start of the cable pattern. Not that I will get to wear it much for a while, if the weather stays as nice as it is at the moment. Not that that's a complaint!

All my other UFOs are hibernating at the moment, save for Roza's socks, which I take out every few days to knit a pattern repeat or two. It's a very nice-looking pattern (even my husband commented on how nice it was!) but I find it a bit boring after a while.

I finally bought some yarn today for Dollar and a Half Cardigan on on Ebay. I was thinking of trying Cashcotton DK with it - I'm not sure I'll get the right gauge, but the price was right and I got seduced. In any case, the yarn should be nice and I'll definitely use it for something or other!

Isn't this the cutest measuring tape? I got it from Vintagepoppy on Etsy.

Books and such

After teaching today I walked to the library near Trafalgar square to borrow some books. This library usually has a good selection, unlike the library close to where I live. My local library seems to mainly stock chick-lit, 'romance' novels and thrillers. When I got there, it turned out that it was closed for refurbishment - maybe the council could have advertised this on its libraries page, rather than the fact that they put some kind of video on Youtube? So I ended up going into Waterstones and buying three books in a three for two deal with a gift voucher and some loyalty points. I haven't bought novels in ages - I've been going to the library instead, - so I'm feeling a bit guilty, as I am bound to end up giving one or two of them to charity. Still, books aren't that bad value compared to cinema tickets or even DVDs.

I bought the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - it is quite surprising that I haven't read this one yet. I haven't seen the movie either. The second book is the new Alexander McCall Smith book, The World According to Bertie, which I was planning to buy anyway. I like his novels when I am in the mood for something light and for beach holidays. The third book is On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, which I am hoping will be very good.

It was sort of silly though to buy three books, when I was planning to order some off the internet as well. I started reading a library copy of A Suitable Boy, but since the book is about 1000 pages, I felt that maybe I should get my own copy. I might just re-borrow it from the library now. I am also planning to buy Reason For God, because it was recommended by one of the pastors at my church. And my book group picked Diving Bell and Butterfly as our next read. It sounds thoroughly depressing and neither of the libraries I go to stocks it. At least it's cheap on Amazon, but it may just go straight to charity after the book group meet...

At home I had a package waiting for me: I finally got the two old Rowan magazines I ordered about two weeks ago (or was it just last week?) I really liked the designs on Ravelry, but I think if I just picked them up in the shop, I wouldn't buy them. Maybe it's the styling? At least now I have quite a few 4ply cotton patterns, which is what I wanted. And there are definitely a couple of patterns here that I would like to knit. Still, unlike Interweave Knits, leafing through them is definitely an anticlimax. But I do love the Kaffee Fassett blanket in Magazine 37, even though I haven't even seen it online.

Placed Cable Aran

Yesterday I decided that I wanted to start another sweater project next to my interminable 4ply cotton summer top. My first impulse was to buy yarn for the printed silk cardigan, which I really want to knit. But then I decided to download the excel file of my stash from ravelry instead. Faced with the enormous amount of sweater quantity yarn I already own, I decided that maybe I should just find a pattern for a yarn I already own instead. So I decided to knit the placed cable aran pullover from the fall 2007 issue of interweave knits instead.

I got the yarn I am using from my mother, who bought it in Hungary. It is a bit of a mystery yarn - it is called Petra and was made in Turkey, but there is no other branding on it. It is only 20% wool, but it feels very nice and soft. It is also a very nice pale pink, my photo doesn't really do it justice. I knit up a swatch while reading for work (isn't it great to be able to work and knit at the same time!) and it felt nice to work with. At least it will be easy to look after. I will, however, wash the swatch before I start knitting, as I really don't want any disasters.

The postman rings again

Lately I haven't been wanting to shop for yarn like crazy, so my knitting budget for this month looks a lot more healthy. So I decided to try and find the autumn 2007 issue of Interweave Knits before it was too late and ended up buying it from a lovely lady on ravelry at a very reasonable price, which is great, given that others have apparently spent a fortune on ebay on used copies. Originally I wanted it for the minimalist cardigan, but now I really like the look of the placed cable aran. It would be the perfect weekend pullover for next autumn. Whenever I get an actual issue of IK I always like different patterns than the ones I like looking at their web site or ravelry. It is just different seeing the large glossy printed pictures.

I also bought Knitting on the Road by Nancy Bush, because someone was selling a damaged copy on Amazon at a reduced price. The damage turned out to be minimal both to the book (dent on the cover) and my budget. And I love, love, love the patterns.

I promise I will post about knitting and not shopping soon.

Knitting Polygamy

I seems to be unable to keep to one knitting project at a time. Which means that I haven't had many finished objects lately. Which again makes me feel a bit frustrated with my knitting. At the moment I have two summer tops, three pairs of socks, three scarves and a hat in various stages in unfinishedness. Two of these have not made it past a swatch yet. That, to me, seems like a lot. Maybe I need to stick with one main project with one side project for a while and put everything else on hold.

Yak, not Yuck.

My resolution NOT to buy excessive quantities of yarn is severely tested by some yak / merino mix on colourmart. Maybe I should unsubscribe from the mailing list. But how about a lovely yak cardigan or sweater of my own design? So tempting...

Mail surprise

There was an Amazon package in the post today. I suspected an order on my husband's part, since I haven't ordered anything lately. But then again, he uses the my amazon account to place orders and I probably would have noticed an email thanking me for ordering 'A Very Boring Book on Finance'. So it was almost like a surprise gift - although it turned out it was a gift from me!

I ordered Vogue Ultimate Knitting about two months ago and it was out of stock. I must have somehow missed the email notifying me that it was finally dispatched (I ordered a few gifts for others recently so I probably thought the email was for that...) I haven't had that much time to look at it yet, but this book looks brilliant. Pages and pages of techniques all clearly laid out. It seems like it will be a reference book I'll use over and over again.

We were also away on a brief sailing trip to Greece and when I got home I had my sock yarn of the months, some stitch markers and needles from a ravelry karma swap waiting for me. What fun!

Instead of joining a sock club, I thought it would be nice to try a different brand every month. This month I ordered some lovely yarn from the yarn yard in the one-off colour "surprise": a heathery, brownish, reddish, purplish variegated yarn. It seems like a perfect colour for some autumnal socks when the seasons change again... Delivery was ultra fast and the yarn feels gorgeous.

The stitch markers are from See Jayne Knit look beautiful and appear very well made. They already grace one of my knitting projects :-) Finally, the double pointed needles from BatOutOfHell are the result of a swap on the UKarma group on Ravelry. So despite the fact I haven't been doing much knitting related shopping this month (only the stitch markers and the sock yarn - doing well!) I can't complain about a lack of packages.

Spring is in the air (and in the mail)

After a cold miserable Easter (perfectly spent having leisurely meals with friends and knitting on the sofa) it seems like spring is finally here. And to complement the weather on Monday the spring edition of Interweave Knits has finally landed in my mailbox.

I subscribed to IK over the winter and I was looking forward to my first issue. Which never arrived. IK extended my subscription by an issue and I ended up buying the magazine from Amazon US, as this was still cheaper than ordering it from an online store in the UK. Sometimes Amazon US stuff takes ages to get here, but this time it was quite fast (just over one working week). I quite like the printed silk cardigan and the auburn camp shirt. There is a good likelihood I will knit printed silk. I am waiting to see a few finished examples of the camp shirt on ravelry before I commit to knitting another garment on tiny needles. Oh and I might knit the leggings from skinny knits as a pair of knee-high socks. People on ravelry were complaining about the sizing, but how different from normal sock sizing can it be? Just increase and decrease like in the Nancy Bush patterns or in Knitting Without tears.

Which reminds me of my vintage me-shaped summer top project. It is going well. I put the stitches on some scrap yarn (ok, the end of a ball of yarn from another project that is currently not in use) and tried it on. It fits. I am happy. However, I did decide to rip a few rows back, since I wasn't happy with the pattern / position of a contrast colour stripe I decided to add. But as I promised myself that I will not be afraid of ripping back in order to get a great looking top, I ripped. It shouldn't take me long at all to get to the waist shaping. There the fun starts - I can see more ripping in the future.

Mental note to self: Add a lifeline of scrap yarn before I start to decrease for the waist!

Learning about fit and ease

Setting out to more or less design my own garment appears to have been a great idea. I still haven't got past making a gauge swatch, but I learnt so much. Particulraly, I learnt why my last three sweaters are the way they are.

Let us take the absolute disaster first: the ribbon xback from knitty. I got the yarn as a gift with this specific pattern in mind. The idea was that given my bosy shape this would look cute on me. I liked the pattern and decided to giv it a go. I measured myself, saw that my bust measurement was about 34 inches, and as a resuly chose to knit it in a medium with finished bust of 35 inches. That is negative ease. With cotton ribbon yarn. When I finished the bloody thing, it was literally falling off me and I didn't know why. Ouch. Of course the darn thing got frogged and there is no way I am re-knitting again. The yarn is pretty and I will use it, but I am not sure what for.

Anyway, now I have learnt about negative and positive ease, wearing ease and design ease and I have learnt that cotton stretches. If I knit that thing again - it would be an XS, maybe a small.

The same goes for my bulky jumper and my leftovers vest. They are just a bit too big. As they are wool rather than cotton, they are a bit more forgiving. Especially the vest. And my bulky jumper is nice to wear around the house on cold days, so I decided that I am not going to frog it.

And hopefully I want be making the same mistake when I knit my next sweater...

I'm so excited...

As I said before, I have gone on a yarn binge. But - I am really excited about what I bought and my urge to shop seems to have lessened.

What I am most excited about is the colourmart superfine merino dk that came in the mail today. I got it at a good price and it feels so soft. It is a lovely colour too. And I bought it with a purpose in mind: to knit a cardigan that caught my eye from the Debbie Bliss cashmerino DK pattern book. I bought the pattern book specifically for this pattern (although there are some other nice ones in it too - like the lovely, lovely Alpine cardigan).

The Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker that I ordered of Amazon US also came in the mail this week. Packages from Amazon US seem to take ages to arrive. I love it already - I want to knit a scarf for my dad's partner for her birthday and I think I am just going to pick one of the lace patterns for it.

So with all the cotton and sock yarn I bought this months, I am more than happy with my stash acquisitions and have lots of lovely projects to look forward to.

Taking stock

I spent this morning taking stock of my stash, the projects I want to knit and my knitting spending. I have acquired most of my stash over the last six months - I actually have a stash now as opposed to a box of leftovers and gifts. I am still trying to make up my mind whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.
One thing I noticed is that I seem to buy until I reach a kind of saturation point for whatever type of yarn I am buying. Last autumn that was wool - I bought enough for about three sweaters (number of sweaters knit since then is of course zero). Over the last two weeks I have been buying cotton. My fear is that now I am going to get started on lace-weights...
I was even brave enough to add up my yarn-spending over the last six months and while it is bad it is not as bad as I feared it might be. I spent about twice what I think my budget should be for six months. Not good, but not catastrophic either.
Now I need to get back to my knitting. From now on I will try and only buy yarn for projects that I have set my heart on. Unfortunately there are a couple of projects I really want to knit, but don't have any yarn in my stash for. On the other hand I have lots of yarn in my stash I don't have any projects for. Silly me.

I have blown the budget...

At least my yarn budget. Enough said. But the yarn is soooo lovely. And I still keep wanting to shop for more.

Lace Shawl FO

I thought I would never finish this... I really liked the pattern (it is from Victorian Lace Today), but wasn't so keen on the yarn and as a result I didn't like the overall experience. I read a lot of good things about Handmaiden Seasilk on the internet and I even went to my LYS rather than ordering online. I would have preferred a darker blue, but was happy with the one I got. But, not only was it very tiring to knit with this yarn (something others have mentioned as well), but it also turned out to be slightly fluffy. It appears to be shedding some of the (presumably) seasilk part. At first I considered sending it back, but then I looked it up on the internet / ravelry and this seemed to be a common problem with this yarn. Also, when I asked other family members, they didn't think the fuzziness was really noticeable on the finished product. I guess it just bothered me as I was working with the yarn. You can see the fuzziness a little bit in the picture below:



The finished object is quite lovely and I hope my MIL will like it. I wrapped it up nicely in tissue paper and my BIL is taking it with him on his visit.






Part of the reason this seemed to be a never-ending project is that I had to rip back the garter stitch edging at the top and a pattern repeat, as otherwise I would not have been able to finish the lace edging. Even like this, I wish I had knitted one fewer pattern repeats as I only had enough yarn to single crochet along the top, rather than finishing the edging the pattern recommended.

Spring cotton

Until now I never even thought of buying cotton yarn. But since it is starting to feel like spring (well, not really with the wind and storms earlier this week) I suddenly want to knit cotton summer tops. So I went to John Lewis on Monday and had a look at the different varieties of cotton available. The I ordered some for a top from a really old Hungarian knitting magazine that I would like to knit. The pattern for that is really vague, something along the lines of: cast on 'enough' stitches depending on your size and gauge and knit according to the measurement diagram drawn on the left. Well, to be honest it's a bit less vague - it does say things like decrease for armholes and pick up stitches for collar, while assuming that the reader will know how to actually do these tasks and how many stitches to decrease / pick up. But the top looks nice in the pictures and I think it will look good on me. And as it is a fairly simple knit in the round in ribbing affair it should be ok. It does have a really nice collar though. And as it does not have any set-in sleeves I shouldn't have any real problems.
I am trying to do some reading in preparation for this project such as finding out about positive and negative ease. The scary thing is I am not sure how cotton behaves and whether I will like knitting with it. The pattern specifies 4ply cotton with 2.5mm needles. I ordered some discontinued Jaeger 4ply cotton. I was tempted to order more, but then I don't know yet whether I will absolutely hate knitting with 4-ply cotton. I also ordered some Debbie Bliss Cathay in case I like the pattern better in DK. In any case I have enough yarn for two summer projects as it is, but I just keep thinking of more. (There is another gorgeous old Hungarian pattern I'd like modify - this time a camisole, just the thing for a beach holiday.)