Damn, Knit & Blast It

Holiday knitting that didn’t make it

July 29th, 2009, 9:26 am

I confess. Iris wasn’t the first project I bought to take on holiday with me.

I rushed from the travel agent my LYS and snuffled up this cutie, fully intending to save it for the holiday…

It’s Katia from the Rowan Lenpur collection.

The Lenpur yarn is lovely – soft and very drapey – although it is one of those annoying yarns made of several threads held together that can split easily if you’re not paying attention.

I chose a flattering red shade…

I arrived home with my “knitting for the holiday” project and thought,

“I’ll just cast on and make sure I know the stitch pattern before I get on the plane…”

I cast on…
” I’ll just do a few more repeats….”

Oops!

Before I knew it, I’d done the back and one side and the holiday was a couple of weeks away!

The stitch pattern is a breeze. Two rows and one of those is all purl!

Then I screwed up – I had decided I’d finish Katia to wear on holiday – putting myself under pressure to finish it. That’s always a mistake.

I nearly finished the second front and counted my rows they were out. Bugger!

By this stage, Katia had become my commuting knitting and I was trying to work this out on the tube.

I ripped the front down to the waist on the train.

When I got home, had a coffee, calmed down and looked at it again I realised the horrible truth. I had made a small mistake on the first front then carefully followed my own notes and made the same, matching mistake on the second front!

It was a small mistake and didn’t matter – in fact I NEEDED to make that same mistake on the second front for it to match.

I’d pulled out a couple of days of perfectly good knitting!! Oh POO!! I was never going to finish before the holiday now.

Somehow, Katia now felt tainted and I didn’t want to take her on holiday to finish so she got thrown on stitch holders and stuffed in the knitting bag.

Hence going and buying the lovely Iris.

This is so not like me – I normally am the virtuous “One WIP at a time girl”. I’m ashamed of myself…

This is how far I am with the second front…

It won’t take much to finish…once I’m done with Iris, it’s back to Katia…then the Flower blanket, then the See Through Jumper..

Oh My! How many WIPs has this one WIP girl got!!

Shame, shame, Oh the shame….

Filed under Knits WIP, Knitting · 4 Comments

So Fed Up, I Went to Mexico….

July 20th, 2009, 11:43 pm

I’ve been busy. I’ve been stressed with work. I’ve been trying to sell and buy a new home. I’ve not had any time off work since Christmas because I thought I’d be moving.

I was coping with all this.

My house purchase/sale falling apart for the second time and putting right back at square one was too much to take. I could either get very depressed or take positive, decisive action.

Positive action it was. I marched Ben to the nearest Travel Agents and booked us a luxury holiday in Mexico!

Fear not, I’m getting to the knitting related parts – this isn’t a “look at my holiday snaps” post.

I decided to treat myself to a brand spanking new project for the trip – no stash busting, no trying to finish off other projects – this holiday was to be indulgence all the way…

I decided on Iris from Rowan 45. A beautiful lace cardigan in Rowan Cotton Glace.

Here she is…

I love knitting cotton on holiday – hot damp hands and suncream don’t seem to affect it too much. I found out the hard way once that hot sunny beaches and Kidsilk Haze are a match made in hell!

You see that couple of inches of knitting in the picture? You think that was all I did?

Ha! Of course not. I cast on the back on the airplane, using an addi circular so as not to upset airport security with pointy, long, evil terrorist death sticks (or knitting needles as they sometimes are called) and knit for most of the 10 hour flight.

I knit by the pool. (note the rather large cocktail on the table in the foreground)

In fact, I knit in the pool!

Note the ball of yarn tucked in my bikini strap!

This was a technique that was a little ungainly and fraught with constant danger of drowning my knitting so it was an experiment which didn’t last too long.

If you think people looked at me knitting under a sun shade, you should have seen their faces when I knit in the pool!