Damn, Knit & Blast It

I’ve just had a terrific week.

After some serious looking, I’ve been offered a super job. My days of idleness and knitting are numbered! As an IT consultant, I expect that I’ll have to do some travelling but I promise my knitting will be my constant companion. I’ll keep you posted on the trial of trying to fit knitting into the working week!

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I jumped on a plane for a week in Israel with Ben. Ben was on a two week training course for his work, in Tel Aviv, so I joined him for the weekend and the second week.

Don’t worry – I’m getting to the knitting bits!

So what knitting to take to Israel? Too damn much – that’s what!

Security at the Israeli airports is seriously strict. I wasn’t going to risk anything long and pointy for the flight – even bamboo. I decided to play it very safe and take some short bamboo DPNs ( that were as threatening as 4 cocktail sticks) and a ball of sock yarn. I only have one set of bamboo DPNs in 2.5mm so I had to find a pattern to fit…

I decided to follow the thousands of other knitters before me and do Hedera by Cookie A. free from Knitty.

I chose Nature’s Palette in colour “Owl’s Clover” from my stash – OK, it’s a very recent addition to my stash. I made a heroic dive across the room and intercepted it on the way to the dustbin when Jane (a fellow Guilty Knitter) was having a stash purge.

Jane. I love your stash purges!! Thank you!!

I started the sock and had it on the needles before I left – just in case the security guard’s English didn’t include the word “knitting”…I could imagine me trying to explain, with much handwaving and no Hebrew, what it was all for!

It all got buried in the bottom of my carry on bag, stuffed in a little pink makeup case…

The good news is that no one batted an eyelid at my knitting at security or on the flight. Unfortunately, I fell asleep both ways for large portions of the flight so I have only managed this much!

Not much to show for 10 hours of flying!! It’s a fun pattern so far – this will be my “travelling sock” now I’m back.

So. Beach knitting…

Several people I know were horrified at the notion of knitting amongst the sand, sea, sweat and greasy suntan lotion. It does take some forethought. I have learnt from (sticky) experience that Kidsilk Haze and sweaty hands are a match made in Hell.

I didn’t want to take Frappe because I was easily going to be onto the making up stage – knitting is one thing – pins, darning needles, sewing on the beach? I’m not quite that insane.

I have found that cotton is very good on a beach – it doesn’t stick to your hands or attract sand. I also have managed to accrue 67 balls of Jaeger Siena in my stash

Subbing the Siena for 4ply cotton, I threw all the yarn, pattern and needles in the case to make Geno from Rowan 43 – in fact it’s the only design I really like from that mag! Lacey front, plain back – lots of choice of what to knit!

I love the Lace on this…

I then had a pang – it’s a bit fine…I’ll just throw 7 balls of Silk Cotton and the needles and the pattern for Glace from RYC Summer delights into the suitcase – you never know…

Thats’s this one – from the cover …

I seriously thought I needed to take enough yarn to complete a cardigan, a singlet and a pair of socks! No wonder my case weighed a ton!

So did I finish all these projects on the beach?

Of course I didn’t!

I managed this much of the lace – one whole pattern repeat – for Geno before deciding that being hunched over a lace pattern chart on a beautiful sun drenched beach was not the best use of my sun tanning potential!

I switched to Glace – There’s 18 cms of 2×2 rib to start Glace – much more suntan friendly!
I managed this…

The sun in Israel was very strong – I tan really easily and rarely burn but even I had to take a couple of days off from the beach.

I explored up the coast, while Ben was busy working , to the port of Jaffa and drank freshly squeezed Jaffa orange juice in a the flea market of Jaffa! I poked around the port and thought, “is that an abandoned knitting project?”

Ben and I took a day trip to Jerusalem – Oh what a fascinating, historical place! We barely scratched the surface in a day. I did, however find a sculpture to world peace…call me obsessed but all I could see was a giant ball of wool!

Frappe is storming along… I’m whizzing up the last sleeve today. Unfortunately there’s nothing interesting or exciting to tell or show you about it – quick, easy, looks good so far.

So in the absence of exciting knitting news, want to see my latest embellished Poohs?

(For anyone confused by that question see my post “The Embellishment of Pooh” for how I came to doodle on an E. H. Shepard drawing of Pooh Bear. )

I have been watching far too much Star Trek whilst knitting…therefore I felt compelled to try a “Spock Pooh”!

He is supposed to be phasering a wibbley orange alien who is disintegrating on the right of the picture…not sure this one worked too well!

Then of course, I realised I hadn’t had a “Knitting Pooh”!

Knitting Pooh is wearing a Noro bobble hat, an Aran Jumper and hand dyed variegated socks! He is knitting from Rowan’s little known book “Knitting Bear Knits”…

Ben felt left out at this point and had to embellish a Pooh to reflect his current game – Bioshock.

That’s a Big Daddy and a little Sister….(play about 40 hours of the game if you feel the need to understand what’s going on here!!)

The standard of Poohs is ramping up now. I needed inspiration…I looked out of the window and saw my veggie patch…

This is my current favourite – Allotment Pooh!

Allotment Pooh is inspecting his carrots and radishes, runnerbeans in the background and a hanging basket on the right (hmmm the basket doesn’t quite work huh?) I was really pleased with the garden fork he’s holding!

I tried to show Thug my art work – apart from being blind, he really was just too sleepy to care!

OK – I admit it – it’s a thinly veiled excuse for cute cat photo!

I keep saying I need a yarn sale.

John Lewis kindly obliged me and are having their big, summer yarn sale. I think the rest of the store is having a sale too but let’s focus on what matters here!

I really, REALLY don’t need to buy any yarn. Take a peek at the scary spreadsheet of my stash on the stashwatch page if you think I’m kidding.

But I have been in a knitting slump. A friend of mine told me she wasn’t going to keep a stash any more because she enjoyed choosing a project, going buying the yarn and casting on the minute she got home.

Doesn’t that sound more fun than guiltily hoarding yarn then knitting it up because you think you really ought to? Even though you’ve gone off the project?

I thought I’d try her approach and see if it cured my SKS (Summer Knitting Slump)…

…God! I’m good at coming up with excuses to buy yarn aren’t I??!!

I gnashed, bit and clawed my way through the frenzied pack of yarn hungry knitters and managed to emerge with not one but two garments’ worth of yarn and a pattern book.

I snapped up a copy of RYC/Rowan’s Summer Delights pattern book – I like lots of the patterns in this book!

And a pack of 10 balls of RYC Silk Cotton. When I was in JL, they only had a pack of 10 of each colour out in the sale. Conveniently, the jacket I wanted to make takes 10 balls in my size

I’m going to knit Frappe….

This one…

My plan to buy the yarn for a project and cast on straight away without bothering my stash went a little awry. I did indeed cast on Frappe as soon as I got home (almost before I’d sat down!) I did find it impossible to resist stashing more of the lovely Silk Cotton for a second project from the book though. It was a sale…It was a bargain….

Can you guess which pattern the second garment is? Would it be the one on the cover?? I couldn’t possibly say

So how’s Frappe knitting up?

Like a dream! My mojo seems to have returned and I’m knitting furiously! The yarn is beautiful to knit with and is growing fast on 4.5mm needles.

I’ve done the back and one front already…

The Silk gives the yarn a slight crunchy, crepey feel which I like. They yarn’s stitch definition makes the most of this stitch pattern too.

I do have one reservation about the project. The RYC Silk Cotton is allegedly “Dry Clean only”. I’m not a fan of dry cleaning – expensive, environmentally dubious use of chemicals and a whole lot of hassle running to a fro the dry cleaners.

I have heard a tale that says that the only problem is the yarn will harden up if washed, then soften again with wear. Once I’ve finished Frappe, I’ll knit any leftovers into a swatch and report back to you.

But right now, me and my knitting mojo are best friends again and we’re going to spend an hour on the sofa with Frappe, a big mug of coffee and a lazy ginger cat!

So.

What do you do with one skein of stunningly lovely Giotto?

I had found a pattern that called for one skein for my size. Unfortunately I think Colinette got a model who’d taken a few too many Valium…

It’s from this Colinette book, called Westcountry

It’s a simple variation on a ripple stitch – two pieces, straight up for 26cm with no shaping and a couple of shoulder straps. It is rather cropped but on a scorching hot day,after a couple of trips to the gym, I think I can get away with it.

I had a bugger of a time keeping the pattern correct! Mainly because it was virtually impossible to see the increases and decreases in ribbon yarn, in garter stitch.

Once I decided to use my trusty B&Q stitch markers to mark where the increases and decreases fell, I got on much better.

Here’s a question, if you’re knitting something with a ziggy zaggy bottom edge, where do you measure to? The tip of the point (making the garment shorter) or valley of the “v” shape?

I got as far as 26cm to the tip of the “V” and started to get that uncomfortable, knitter’s intuitive feeling that there was going to be a problem.

“Hmmmmm….There’s not much yarn left to make the front….” I thought.

I didn’t want to try and join the Giotto if I needed to make the knitting I’d already done longer so I decided not to cut the yarn and start the front. Instead, I wrestled the other end of the yarn out of the centre of my hand wound ball. I then proceeded to knit the front with the back sitting on my lap on a stitch holder.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried knitting knitting from both end of the ball all once but let me tell you – you very quickly get in a great big tangle! I amused my fellow Guilt Knitters by spending about an hour painstakingly unlashing my near complete back from the remains of the ball.

The secret of knitting from both ends of the ball is to make sure the yarn you are not actively knitting with is wound tightly round the ball and looped into a loosish knot so it doesn’t unwind as you knit. The active yarn can then pull happily from the centre.

I managed, with some jiggling, to end up with a back and a front, both 26cm long. Unfortunately, to get that I was left with about 60cm of Giotto to make the straps! EEEk!

What shall I make the straps from?

I dug into my stash and came out with a bag of Paton’s DK cotton I’d bought intending to make a granny square blanket.

These are the colours I had to choose from…

This is the Giotto, knit up into the ripple stitch…

Not a bad match huh? Just goes to show that I’m drawn to similar colours, time and again.

I couldn’t choose between the cottons. What’s more, I didn’t want to limit the top by having one predominant colour. So I chose all of them!

I picked up an 8mm crochet hook, for no better reason than the top was knit on 8mm needles, and crocheted a chain using all six colours held together.

This is what I got…

You and see the “right” side of the chain at the top and the “wrong”, bumpy side at the bottom. I thought the bumpy side reflected the garter stitch of the top quite well, so that faced outwards. It also a happy accident that it’ll be more comfortable to have the smooth, right side against my skin!

In the course of making this strap, I also discovered that I had created an irresistible cat toy…

Thug says he was just checking for durability but I don’t believe him – he’s having too much fun!!

Do you want to see the finished article now?

I am pleased with it but I would have been much happier if it had been an inch or two longer.

If I’d used Giotto for the straps this would have been so short I would have been arrested! Especially as I’ve read that the Giotto stretches with wear…stretchy straps are not good!

Not quite the “get your knitting Mojo back” kinda project in the end was it?

I need a yarn sale….