Damn, Knit & Blast It

Excitement this week – My copy of A Stitch in Time Volume 2 arrived. Susan Crawford even signed it for me – Thanks Susan!

It’s this book

From Top Secret 2

It is a HUGE book, ram packed with 120 fantastic patterns from 1930s – 1959. All graded and made with modern yarns. Some are not to my taste but others are definately on my wish list. Even if you didn’t knit, it’s a facinating coffee table book to flick through.

Do you  remember that I knitted “To Wear in the Evenings” (or Top Secret as I called it) for the first volume? I blogged it here –>> Top Secret – Declassified

This was the garment…

From Top Secret

Well, told you in my “Where have you been?” post that I had knit a garment for Volume two and here it is!!

From Top Secret 2

It’s a fabulous lace top from the 1950′s called The Ribbon Threaded Jumper. It’s on page 310 if you have the book.  Here’s the original picture from the 1950′s…

From Top Secret 2

Do you like??

It really was an absolute pleasure to knit. Knitshop Pima Cotton and a pretty straight forward lace pattern. Very “my kinda knit”! The yoke is interesting – the back, front and both sleeves are put on a circular needle and yoke is knitted in one piece. Strangely, it’s knit back and forth with an opening at the back that you sew up later. I would knit it in the round if I wasn’t making a sample strictly to the pattern!

Wanna see some more piccies?
Here are some, just before I sent my “Ribbon Threaded jumper” back to the publishers.

How the sleeve and yoke attach…

From Top Secret 2

The completed jumper before sewing up (I send it back without sewing it)…

From Top Secret 2

Some yoke detail….

From Top Secret 2

And from the book – a cute sleeve picture…

From Top Secret 2

And that neck – all beribboned and finished

From Top Secret 2

So did I get a mention in this fantastic book?

Naturally, at the front in the acknowledgement – a list of all us brave knitters…

From Top Secret 2

So all that’s missing from this post now is a completed knit report and a picture of Mewsley, refusing to get off the knitting!

From Top Secret 2

Oh Gosh!

Over 2 months since my last blog post – you must be imagining the worst
Massive apologies

Don’t panic! There is absolutely nothing seriously or medically wrong.

I have just been struggling with a combination of my normal SKS (Summer Knitting Slump), loosing my beloved blogging muse, Thug (3 pictures of his daft antics and a blog post had written itself!), being mega busy at work and suffering from insomnia.  Knitting was starting to feel like one more pressure – something I had to do so I could blog about it. Time to take a break for a couple of weeks… (Ooops…)

So all of those are things I can’t change except insomnia…been creeping up for a while- it’s quite odd. I’m utterly exhausted by 20:30 in the evening - falling asleep on the sofa unless I am poked with sharp sticks by the lovely Ben (who is happy to oblige).  Even if I stay awake all evening, I’m  too tired to knit. I go to bed, instantly go to sleep, until about  3am. Bing! Wide awake. If I knit then I wake up too much and am knackered the next day and it exacerbates the cycle. Can you see how this is affecting my knitting huh?

The good news is my Doc gave me a full MOT and I’m as fit as a fiddle. I guess I’m just going to have to manage it.

But enough of this. Have I done any knitting at all?

Well, after a lot of frowning and swearing…

From Elizabeth

I finally finished the accursed fronts of Elizabeth. I have to say, now they are done – the design is rather good. The collar extends round the back of the neck. I have joined the collar and “three needle bind offed” the shoulders…This is how it looks right now…

From Elizabeth

I currently romping through the last sleeve so should be done quite soon (assuming I can stay awake(!))

But I have knit another entire garment while I have been absconding from blog land….
…but unfortunately I can’t show it to you!

Hideous disaster I’m ashamed of?? Au contraire!
Do you remember when I made Top Secret? The sample I made for KnitOnTheNet for the Stitch in Time book?

Well, they contacted me to see if I’d do another sample – there is a sequel to Stitch in Time on the way – Squeee!!!!

You can read all about it and pre order here – Stitch in Time Vol 2.

What did I knit???

Well, I can’t tell you much or even show you til the book is out but it was a massively enjoyable knit – I could easily reknit it for myself. A lacey design from the 50′s in a lovely pure cotton dk.

You’re gonna have to wait to see that one.

So. I had best get back to finishing the Elizabeth sleeve and try not to fall asleep face down a drooling on my needles…

Lets not leave it 2 months until the next post huh?

Squee!

News, hot off the press from the Guilty Knitters….

We have a famous knitting designer friend in out midst!

One of the founder members of the Guilty Knitters, Janie B., has been chosen to be one of the designers for the IKnit sock club.!!

We (the Guilty Knitters) have watched Janie carefully work and rework her Tantalus design until she was happy with it. More attention to detail than I could manage.

Janie announced here success to us but was a little shy.

Best shot I could get of her!

From Janie B

Janie loves working with ridiculously fine yarns, has a passion for lace and has the “sock-bug in a bad way. Janie takes her knitting everywhere with her and inspired my “commuting knitting” by telling me how many rows she could manage in the lift at Mornington Crescent tube station!!!

Well done Janie – I’m green with envy

I think someone has put a “Kim Hargreaves Curse” on me!

I love her designs but I keep on getting it wrong with stupid errors when I knit them! It’s not like I’m a beginner either is it?? They all turn out OK in the end but if I’m going to mess up it’s on a Kim pattern….

First there was Maria – a lovely favourite top of mine – but I sewed the left sleeve into the right armhole  <Slaps forehead>

From

Then there was Emily – This time I managed to get the edging different lengths and forget to do the decreasing on the sleeves…

From

The Haven scarf??? That turned out really well but I made a huge blunder and messed up the pattern (with associated embarrassing shot of me being unhappy about it…)

From

Turned out OK after some frogging  though…

From

And of course there was the memorable Ronnie – the sloppy Joe in Rowan Big Wool. I struggled with the tension, made it was too large and end up looking like a Dr Who alien and promising a “big wool bonfire”!

From

Ronnie has escaped the bonfire and has now been rehomed to a friend of mine – She looks fabulous in Ronnie – maybe because she’s a foot taller than me!

So what Kim Hargreaves related disaster has prompted this “Susan’s Screw-up Retrospective”??

I’ve had some pretty red Rowan Summer Tweed in my stash for some time – another John Lewis Rowan sale source of guilt

I had always intended to make Elizabeth from Kim’s Heartfelt book with it. With the sun shining and the air-conditioning at work blasting so I need a jacket in the office it was calling to me.

This is the piccy in Kim’s book…

From Elizabeth

Beautiful huh? Love that curved peplum I would even knit moss stitch (which I don’t enjoy much) to own that beauty!

I happily got out my swift and wound the hanks of Summer Tweed into yarn cakes – I love this stage of starting a new project

From Elizabeth

So off I started knitting the back….

….I found that the pattern was complicated and had lots of  shortrow shaping to make the curve – a common technique Kim uses…But the Knits and Purls were in the wrong place for the moss stitch – that’s not like a Kim pattern….

One ball of yarn later- looked back at the pattern, relieved I had finished the short row shaping….

A word caught my eye at the top of the page….

Elizabeth is knitted in DOUBLE moss stitch throughout….I had diligently corrected the pattern to single moss stitch. I hit myself in the face with the pattern several times to try and beat some sense into myself. I only do this type of screw up with Kim’s patterns!!

Rip…Rip…Rip…start again…

I finished the back without drama…

It did seem a bit large…..

From Elizabeth

But the DOUBLE moss stitch looked super in the red…

From Elizabeth

I’m half way up a front – the fronts and the notched collar are supposed to be the hard bits….

From Elizabeth

I was a happy little knitter….then, in a quite coffee break at work, I thought I’d show a colleague what I was working on and looked at Kim’s site…..

….and found the errata….

ELIZABETH
Back – Length to the beg of armhole shaping should read 38.5 (38.5: 40: 40: 40: 40) and not 42 (42: 43: 43: 43: 43) as stated.
Left front – Shape armhole should read as folls:
Cast off 4 (4: 5: 5: 5: 6) sts at beg of next row. Work 1 row. Dec 1 st at armhole edge of next 5 (5: 5: 5: 7: 7) rows and 2 (2: 3: 3: 2: 3) foll alt rows, and then on foll 4th row.
Size diagram – garment length should read 56.5 (57.5: 59: 60: 61: 62) cm – 22 ¼ (22 ½ : 23: 23 ½ : 24: 24 ½) in

I had knit 3.5 cms too much before starting the armholes! All that knitting wasted

So tonight I rip a large chunk of the back out and do it again.

I suppose it’s not too bad – that’s the first time in my many Kim Hargreaves’s cursed garments it’s not been my fault!!

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago

The lovely Ben bought me choccies (not good for the figure) and a bottle of my favorite scotch – Talisker -A Peaty one from the Island of Skye (not good for the figure either!!) and a wonderful geeky gadget – a Kindle!!

What’s a Kindle?? Why are you gibbering about it on a knitting blog??

It’s this…

From Kindle

It’s an electronic book reader…but that doesn’t do it justice. There is a huge amount of detail about it here–>> Amazon Kindle page if you want the marketing blurb but I’ll give you the knitting related basics.

Apart from being the size and weight of a really good, large  biscuit (!) it can hold hundreds of books. (You kinda expect that of a book reader)

The Kindle displays them with a unique “digital ink” which  doesn’t have the glare or eyestrain potential of a computer screen and you can adjust the size and orientation of the page too. ..My woman logic immediately decided that a kindle (that can be read in bright sunlight) and can have a large font was cheaper than  prescription sunglasses which I only use while reading on the beach…

…and no paper patterns blowing into the sea…

….and the Audio function can read the books to you while you doze on the beach…

…….and it’s lighter than the average paperback and easier to hold open really important if you read in bed with a book in one hand and stoking an inquisitive, nuzzelly cat with the other…

…and it has free wireless to download books that you’ve bought from Amazon. OK – most of my “purchases” have been classics that have either been free of a mighty £0.72p each !

So all the bookiness is great (can you tell that I’m a fan yet?)- really well designed for people who want to read books – but what about knitters?? There are hidden wonders to behold for knitters!

The Yarn Harlot’s books are available to Kindle.. plus 240 assorted texts including pattern books (the Kindle does display pictures but black and white only)

And there are magazines but no knitting magazines as yet

And there are blogs!   Only 6 knitting ones but you’ll be glad to know I’ve made my blog available to Kindle

It looks like this on Amazon….

From Kindle

And like this on the Kindle ….

From Kindle

That’s the “articles” view (I’ve set up my blog to send you the last 10 articles) you then click the one you want and read.

Unfortunately Amazon charges £1.99 per month – not sure I’d pay for something I could get free on the web?? (But please do subscribe -If you all subscribe I may personally get as much a 50p!!)

My blog available here–>> Kindled Damn Knit & Blast It

And then there are the PDFs… I had no idea the Kindle could hold PDFs – I have a lot of patterns I have bought from Ravelry which are PDF. You can either plug your Kindle into your computer and drag a PDF onto it, or email it using the free email address (there is a small charge if you use the 3G connection – beware!) You can even email scans of patterns to your kindle email and get them on the Kindle – invaluable if you’re comjuting and knitting and don’t want to carry a pattern book or don’t have a printer.

Here’s a view of my Chunky Twisted Ribbon Cushion Pattern from a while ago…

From Kindle

The pictures are great quality but sadly, black and white. You can change the orientation of the page and zoom in too like this, then scroll left and right…

From Kindle

So are there downsides? Yes.

You can’t scribble on the kindle – you can add electronic notes but it’s just not the same as scribbling a row count or a modification in the margin of the pattern.

Also, my big bug bear with the PDFs – although you can zoom in and see what you need – as soon as you exit the PDF it forgets the zooming in and reverts to the full page view – annoying if you want to keep referring to the pattern and have to go through the slightly clumsy zooming in again and again.

One last major plus…it has free WiFi on it’s own WiFi network. So you can download a book whenever or wherever you are. It also has a web browser so you can browse the internet too (!). The web browser isn’t brilliant and not all sites work 100% – (it’s still “experimental” – but it’s free for goodnes sake. I can easily  send a twitter message or browse Ravelry.com although updating anything isn’t much fun.

So to wind up – I’m really happy with my Kindle and hope you can see all the knitterly potential.

One last smile – You’ll need to be a Science fiction fan to get this joke XKCD,com…

From Kindle

Knitting has a wonderful ability to change my response to situations.

My trains have been late, cancelled, crowded and generally a disorganised mess since the snow in December. MPs are now involved and there is a growing call for Southeastern Trains to loose their franchise all together. As a beleaguered daily commuter on this shabby excuse for a service,  I should be cussing, fistwaving and stamping my foot. But I’m not

Why not?

Because, after a couple of weeks of adding up the total number of minutes my trains were late, I was gaining at least an extra hour a week knitting time! So now, when the driver announces that there is congestion at London Bridge, a dog on the line or that the train has lost it’s path (Yep, we really had those and more this week !) I huff and puff a little, then think , “Great, I can get some more rows in!”

So, all these late trains mean… I’ve finished my Easy for the Train socks .

From Easy for the train

From Easy for the train

Not thrilling or challenging but colourful and fun – a success.  For me these were not all about the finished product but about de-stressing my commute – a success in that respect too!

Oh! I must be turning into a process knitter- Gasp!

Today is this blog’s 4th blogiversary!

When I do an annual review of my knitting and blogging achievements, I’m astonished that I’ve kept it up this long. It would never have kept going if you lovely readers hadn’t kept on commenting and encouraging me – Thank you! 

I looked back to see what I had written for 2009′s annual review as a starting point …errrmmm…I didn’t do one! (More excuses reasons coming up) Well,  I had just moved house and was in the middle of having all my windows replaced  – so I’ll briefly cover 2009 here too.

Just in case you’re desparate to see what I did in 2007 and 2008, click the links below:-

2007  – 1st Blogiversary

2008  – 2nd Blogiversary

Not many pictures but I’ve added links to all the projects I’m going to  mentioned here  in case you want to have a look-see

I was curious to see if I was posting less and less??

2007 – 87 Blog Posts

2008 – 69 Blog Posts

2009 – 35 Blog Posts

2010 – 36 Blog Posts!!  I beat last year! That’s an average of 3 posts a month – frankly, better than I suspected.

And I have a good reason for the dramatic reduction since 2007 as I returned to full time work mid 2008 – It’s shocking but true – work has impacted my knitting time

But what about last year – 2010??

2010 did seem to be my year of hats and small items (and a huge blanket!)

In 2010 I made…

• 6 hats – 3 for my sister, 1 beret  for me, one for Ben and one for Yaquaholic
• 1 iPhone cosy
• a baby’s matinee coat- my first baby garment
• A huge intarsia purple flower blanket
• a cushion for the conservatory
• a fairisle teacosy – including steeks
• a miniature Lopi jumper
• 3 jumpers for me – the lovely Halcyon, warm Catrin and the horrible, horrible disaster in Big Wool

and I blogged 2 pre-blog projects…

• My lovely Kidsilk Haze Birch Shawl
• Maria in Linen Print

Oh dear – that’s only 14 projects in a year – I’m slipping

But to put that into context – I had just moved house and had also managed to create a fabulous Knitroom, refit and tile a utility room, had new windows fitted, refurbish the conservatory and build a mancave for Ben! (Oh yes, and we got engaged!!)

In 2009…

• 2 cushions – designed and knit the ribbon twist cushion cover and a Carol cushion for my sister
• a Sackboy toy or Ben
• 2 pairs of socks while commuting – boring and happy!
• a hat for Ben which he promptly lost – grrr
• a Starbucks bear
• a knitted wire bracelet
• 4 tops for me – Cheer in green, KSH Lacy top, red Katia and lovely golden Iris

AndI blogged  4 pre-blog projects…

• 3 old projects I was throwing out
• 1 old fave French cable jumper

Only 13 projects in 2009

Other achievements in 2009 were to eventually get to move house, unpack, catch my breath and insulate the loft!!

Thug and Mewsley are still helping with the knitting but not as vigorously – their age (19 years old in April) means they are slowing down a little.

I thought you might be missing them and they did forbid me from embarrassing them (silly cats shouldn’t have mentioned it!) and showing you their “New Year’s bath” shots – poor little  Soggie-Moggies!

From Catbath

From Catbath

Christmas is over and that means just one thing to me – The Bluewater John Lewis yarn sale!!

Most of my ridiculously obese stash can be blamed on the temptation of those wonderful reductions on Rowan yarns

Apparently, there is a sale in the rest of the store too but I’ve usually spent all my money before that actually dawns on me

In this year’s sale I was simultaneously very bad, very good and a bit disorganised.

The very bad first…

I bought more yarn even though I definitely don’t need it. Other years I have managed to be strong and not go to the sale. One year I even didn’t buy anything  – mainly because I got there several days into the sale and the good stuff had gone!

I weakened for Kidsilk Aura – You know how bad I am for Kidsilk Haze – I’m almost as bad for Aura!

First I riffled though the Kidsilk Aura collection book – this one…

From stash

And, given my recent success with fairisle, decided immediately on Liliana – the fairisle jumper….

From stash

I really liked the original colours and managed to find them all (red, cream, black and grey) in the sale except for the dark grey

Janice, our Rowan rep even was kind enough to rummage in the stock room for me but alas – it had been discontinued some time ago. I reluctantly bought a lighter grey that would be OK but not perfect.

I was sure I had the Kidsilk Aura book and didn’t buy it. After all, I bought some Aura for my stash last year didn’t I?? I must have it.

I went to the till and paid, had a look in the other shops and the non-yarn sales  – and actually didn’t buy anything either because it wasn’t that much of a bargain, there was nothing I liked or the queues to pay were stupidly long! Who in their right mind would wait an hour to pay for a £9 t-shirt???

Unfortunately, I had to walk through John Lewis again to return to my car….More badness.

Silky Tweed was also in the sale – I had used it and loved the yarn when making Catrin and promised myself more.

Most of what I saw in the sale was brownish shades, too similar to Catrin. Then I saw some very pretty green – the lady at the till said “oh you’re back again – more knitting??” Project to be decided 

Here it is…

From stash

Now the disorganised bit…

When I got home I checked my stash -I really must load a version of my stash onto my iPhone so I can check it when I’m out.

I was overjoyed!! I had the Grey shade I couldn’t  buy to make Liliana from a previous year’s yarn sale stash enhancement exercise!! But where was the Kidsilk Aura book??  Stupid, Stupid, Susan didn’t have it
Add a list of my knit books to things I should have on my iPhone!

All that did was give me an excuse to jump on the train the next day and head up to John Lewis Oxford street – they tend to have even more yarn than Bluewater!!

I bought the Kidsilk aura book and after a darned good rummage in all the yarn bins – decided to buy some brown Kidsilk aura to go with the recently rediscovered antique gold Kidsilk aura that’s already in my stash – I intend making Gelsey – lovely mottled cabley big warm jumper…

From Gelsey

And the “Very Good”? How can I possibly redeem myself after such a yarn splurge??

Well…I liked Gelsey so much that I also picked up the Kidsilk Aura in purple and lilac to make a second version The woolly mist of an uncontrolled yarn buying frenzy was closing in on me…

I carried the purple and lilac around the shop while I looked at other things on the other floors – for about an hour…my good sense was fighting to be heard,
“You might not like Gelsey when you’ve made it once”
“By the time you’ve made two Kidsilk Aura garments won’t you be bored with it? And it’ll be summer?”
“Your stash is big enough!”
“If you really decide you want it later – there’s plenty of places you could buy that yarn – this isn’t your last chance.”

So I was “Very Good” and put the purple and lilac back.

Maybe, just maybe, there is a distant ray of hope for a pathetic Stash Addict!

I started a new new role with work 3 weeks ago and it has stolen all my knitting time.

Well… the new role plus the horrendous commuting through the 14″ snow  stole my knitting time. I’m in an area where an inch of snow that stays two days is considered an ice age!!

More on the the product of my snowy “commuting knitting” in a moment….

“So is the new role at work the exciting news??” I hear you ask?

Noooo……

The exciting news is……

The lovely Ben proposed and I said, “Yes”.
We’re engaged!
It must have been the Second Chance Hat that finally did it!

Wanna see the ring???

From Ring!

I’m so thrilled with it 

The plan is to get married in the Summer…It’ll be a small wedding and I definitely will NOT be knitting the dress

Sorry! I know it’s a knitting blog and that’s  not knitting but I had to share

So back to the snowy commuting knitting…
You could say I’m being unfaithful to Ben – Gasp! Shock! Horror!
I have been knitting for another man!

Our Twitter buddy, Yaquaholic saw Ben’s  Second Chance Hat and desperately wanted one like it. He pleaded, grovelled, flattered and spun tales of woe and cold ears until I finally agreed to make him one.

Yaquaholic chose Rowan Felted Tweed in great shade called Carbon (colour 159)- a kinda slate grey with flecks of cream and brown – love the colour – I could be tempted to a garment in that myself – yum. Apparently it emulated a long lost beloved hat he had never been able to replace…<insert violins here>

The hat got finished yesterday – just as the snow here thawed – sorry Yaq!

So here it is – the product of a couple of weeks of snowy commuting….Yaq’s Hat (badly modelled by me…)

From yaqs hat

And a pic of it blocking over a bowl (Like I did for Ben’s hat) Showing the nice swirl…Although oddly – the Felted tweed didn’t go nearly as pointy as the pure wool version for Ben??

From yaqs hat

And one of it flat on the desk…I tell you – it’s impossible to get an exciting picture of a dark grey ribbed hat!

From yaqs hat

The last couple of weeks have been fun in the Knit-Room – more screwdriver action than knitting

I do have lots to show you though- Prepare for photo overload

New carpet is down and nice Mr Ikea has left me a huge pile of stuff to build.

All there was to do was to put the “stuff” in the room according to my cunning plan – you will remember this…

From Knit-Room

…surprisingly little went wrong – except for me forgetting that there were light switches and power sockets So every thing shuffled up a bit and I lost some space in the bottom left corner

First we got the Beddinge sofa bed and my my new Norden table in place.

From Knit-Room

Norden will be used for my sewing machine when it’s leaves are up and as somewhere to stand my coffee for the rest of the time! It weighs a ton  – Didn’t realise that when I bought it -so not so easy to move around – mainly because of all the really solid, cunningly concealed storage draws…

From Knit-Room

Thankfully, the table fits and makes a bedside table with the sofa bed open too! (You had me worried there, Jacqui!)

From Knit-Room

“Where’s the wool??”, I hear you cry!

Ok, Ok….

The yarn is in the wardrobes! We built them to have 8 big lidded pullout draws to hold yarn and some shelves for other stuff,  plus some hanging space in the middle for the occasional guest. The wardrobes are from the Ikea PAX range where you buy the frame and chose all your own fittings for the insides….

…And,Yes, I said “8″ draws for yarn…

From Knit-Room

I have been good though and only filled 7 of them!… and a big box of handknit cotton but I’m hiding that… One draw has been used for my fabric stash too – mostly left over from making curtains.

Wanna see?

From Knit-Room

From Knit-Room

When not in use, everything is neatly obscured behind frosted glass doors…

From Knit-Room

The draws have been filled roughly by gauge…

• a 4ply draw
• 2 x DK draws
• an Aran draw
• a Chunky draw
• a miscellaneous “wont fit anywhere else” stuff  draw
• and of course – an entire draw of my beloved KidSilk Haze…

From Knit-Room

By this point in the yarn sorting frenzy,  the men in my life were flaking out…

From Knit-Room

Thug wasn’t much help either….

From Knit-Room

He did have a chat with me about ornaments  though-

From Knit-Room

Thug recommended this display for the table made up of an old vase and my beautiful glass needles…(clever cat, that one!)

From Knit-Room

Last thing to show you for now are the books….

They have a new home in two Billy bookcases, complete with beautiful doors (I love those doors!!)

From Knit-Room

I also learnt something alarming about Billy bookcases. If you build them, then try to hang heavy doors on the front, they fall over onto you when you’re screwing the doors on! There was much squealing but no harm done. There is a good reason Ikea give you widgets to screw them to the walls  -take note!!

I took the opportunity to update my Ravelry library while I was putting all my books and mags away.

I was a little surprised to discover I own 85 books, 83 magazines, 51 booklets and 5 PDFs
Those of you on ravelry can see the true horror here -> Susan’s Ravelry Library

Here’s some random shots of the insides of the Billys (just in case you’re feeling nosey and want to see what’s inside;-) )

From Knit-Room

From Knit-Room

From Knit-Room

From Knit-Room

Even Boofle and Monkey have settled down on the window-sill -Well, they are both knitted!

From Knit-Room

I am so thrilled with the results of the Knit-Room.

I feel a very privileged knitter to have such a room

I’m desperately struggling not to rush out and buy little boxes and ornaments and general fripperies for my Knit-Room.

I need to build the furniture and start putting all the stuff away, decide what I need ( and have room for), THEN go shopping…Probably with Ben holding my credit card to prevent bankruptcy.

But, but……

I saw a super cute thing in Lakeland which some idiot thinks is a ring holder.

I decided that £5 was an extravagance I could stand if  it took the edge off my shopping urge…

I present you with my prediction for this year’s “must have” Knitterly Christmas Stocking filler….

From Knit-Room

A pewter cat, playing with a ball of wool…..Where else could I possibly store my jewelled stitch markers???

From Knit-Room

I have been very jealous since “Project ManCave”.

Project ManCave was where we took a nasty, grubby little bedroom full of boxes of Ben’s toys and general Geekery…

From Knit-Room

…redecorated, replaced the carpet (due to a leaking radiator incident)…

From Knit-Room

and created the perfect Gaming Geek room with shelving for games and a handknitted Sackboy...

From Knit-Room

Great for Ben…..What about ME??!!

For the last year, my Knitterly possessions have languished like this…

From Knit-Room

In an equally horrible environment in need of some love….

From Knit-Room

Time to create the Knit-Room Which also has to double as a guest room.  If you know me, you’ll know that being invited to share a room with my precious stash is indeed an honour. (It’s share with the stash or endure a night with Ben’s beautifully hand painted Games Workshop miniatures of Orcs, Trolls and monsters staring down at you all night!)

Hmmm….
……. Not sure about that name…”Knittery”? Yarnarium? Any better ideas out there for the Knit-Room??

All my “still packed up from the house move” yarn, books and equipment has been moved to another room while the Knit-Room was scrubbed, prepared and painted plain white.

Nothing too difficult or heartbreaking, huh?….

Painting done, we decided to whip the carpet cleaner over the carpet….

Oh Dear.

Once the carpet was moistened, we were aware that there were several patches of ancient cat wee on the carpet. ICK, ICK EWWW! (Definitely not Thug and Mewsley’s work!!)

After trying every trick on the internet to get rid of the smell (and actually making it much worse), it was obvious that  no yarn could be stored in the stinky room and we certainly couldn’t ask a guest to sleep in there – it was revolting.

One carpet, rapidly on the way to the dump.

I now have a clean, fragrant but rather empty room.

From Knit-Room

While waiting for the replacement carpet I have spent many happy hours planning the room layout so it can accommodate a sofa bed for me to sit and knit on (and maybe a guest to use), yarn storage, knit book storage and “other crafty things” storage.

Good old IKEA even had some inspiration for me in one of their Business catalogues…

From Knit-Room

(Click the picture to see it larger – that really is wool in the shelves and needles and yarn in vases as ornaments!! )

Hmmmm, looks pretty but the yarn would get dusty and moths would love it…My yarn needs doors! (And rather a lot of plastic bags )

So I have decided on this layout….

From Knit-Room

Beddinge (sofabed) and one wardrobe I already had, Billy is a bookcase and Norden is a gateleg table. I think you can guess who the ginger one is!

Nice Mr Ikea delivers tomorrow…the suspense is killing me…watch this space

I took a whole day off work last week, met up with 4 of the Guilty Knitters (Hello to Mel, Judie, Glaucia and Jeni ) and had a great day out at the Alexandra Palace Knitting and Stitching Show. (Or Ally Pally to anyone from this corner of the Globe)

We battled against signal failures on the trains (my 20 min journey took 1 hour and 10 mins!!) tube disruption (took  buses) and monstrously long queues for the courtesy bus (took the local bus) but still managed to arrive wound up, excited and yarn hungry. And in need of a loo and a coffee, strictly in that order.

Did I buy huge amounts of stuff? No!!

We are currently decorating and furnishing my new knit-room (more on that in another post ) and I have to face the fact that my stash is way too large and contains too much yarn that I “snapped up because it was a bargain”  – Kid Silk Haze is excluded from this statement of course. When you start looking at how many wardrobes you need to house yarn it’s hard to ignore the “problem”…

So the idea of the day was to have a fun day out with friend (TICK!), forget about work for the day (half a TICK - got phoned a couple of times), look at all the pretty and be inspired (BIG TICK - lots of beautiful sewing and quilting this year too ) and maybe buy some quality yarn NOT quantity.

Wanna see how that worked out??

First I bought some Frilly novelty “Can Can” yarn! Definitely not “Quality” but I can’t resist a bit of fun and I think my Mum will enjoy a play too…

From Ally Pally 2010

It’s supposed to turn out like this…

From Ally Pally 2010

Then I spent a long time at the Jamieson‘s stand “Ohhing and Ahhing” over this book of Felted Handbags (Which I bought)…

From Ally Pally 2010

I was all set to start a yarn buying frenzy to make one or more of the bags when my good friend Judie stopped me,

” Are you going to start it right away? No.”
” Is the yarn the same price online and quickly and easily delivered when you need it? Yes.”
“Do you want to be carrying that yarn around all day? No.”

Thank you Judie for saving me from yarn purchases with your inescapable logic! (I suspect she is related to Mr Spock somewhere along the line…)

I did buy a small kit from Jamieson’s though – this was adorable and irresistible although I rarely drink tea and don’t remember the last time I used a tea pot!

From Ally Pally 2010

I spent a happy 40 mins trying to choose what colours to make the tea pot cosy! This should nicely hone my fairisle skills and, for the handle and spout, introduce me to the most scary word in knitting … STEEK!

Lastly, I couldn’t leave without one over indulgent purchase. I hadn’t spent very much of the budget I had saved up all year so I felt justified…
“Quality not Quantity” was the day’s mantra…..

I got this – Buffalo Gold!

From Ally Pally 2010

It’s 100% bison down from the winter undercoat – Apparently the fibres are smooth and don’t have the scales of sheep’s wool so it won’t felt and it’s very strong making it great for gloves that can be machine washed and generally abused….They even had machine knit pairs there for fishermen!

Read all about it…

From Ally Pally 2010

How much? A stupidly expensive £50 for one skein – but that was my reward for not going crazyand buying packs of half price Rowan!

I was disappointed by the bag they gave me the yarn in though – a thin poly bag which made my luxurious purchase look uncomfortable like I had just walked the dog and picked up the droppings!

From Ally Pally 2010

As I’ve said, I’ve been busy – knitting, work, driving to Bristol and back.

Imagine my delight when I was welcomed home from a long drive by this…

From iPhone

The lovely Ben had prepared a delicious meal of Fajitas, all the trimmings and a hand crafted Margarita

You’ll remember that this lovely man had been put firmly in the dog house a couple of years ago (and has been there ever since in knitterly terms) after loosing a hat I had made him. Not just loosing it – but loosing it after only a couple of outings and before I’d properly photographed and blogged it!!

I had only managed this silly snap of the hat on Thug to use on the “APB for a Lost Hat” blog post...

From

The Margaritas did it, I have finally forgiven him enough to make him another hat

(I also need a commuting project but don’t tell Ben I said that!)

Ben had said he liked the Jacques Cousteau hat by Lalla Pohjanpalo – It’s a free pattern I found on Ravelry

(You can CLICK HERE to find the pattern on Lalla’s blog if you’re not on Ravelry).

Ben loved this picture..

From Ben Hat

And said it reminded him of the “Morph Ball” in Metroid Other M – a game he has just finished playing on the Wii…

From Ben Hat

So at the Iknit Weekender, I was questing to find the perfect yarn to make him this hat.

I went a little crazy at the Blackerdesigns stand - their wool is to die for. Their yarns are not only beautiful but British made and pure fibres. I get the strong impression that if you really wanted to know, they could tell you the names of each of the sheep your yarn came from!

I decided Ben should have this wonderfully soft and squishy Jacob wool with 50% mohair. Anyone who bleats “Wool is itchy”, Wool is rough”, “I can only wear thing so over-processed and  soft they may as well be synthetic” should have a good long fondle of this yarn – it is lovely. You might have gathered – I get a little frustrated with the precious, spoilt, trying to out do each other on how sensitive they are,  “it’s scratchy” brigade! (*thinks* opps, that’s probably alienated half my readers – gulp!)

Enough ranting – here’s the yarn!

From Ben Hat

I have got this far with the hat, after casting on 140 stitches with the Twisted German cast on I learnt in the Lopi course – just to make sure I remembered how!

From Ben Hat

I also bought some light as a feather organic Corridale from Blackerdesigns for a scarflette for me

From Ben Hat

And possibly the most Knit-nerdy book I have ever seen!

It was just too damned interesting to resist

From Ben Hat

So, the Kidsilk Haze workshop was a day of playing, experimentation and fluffy indulgence.

The following day I was busy because I played in a Netball tournament for a work team – I’ve played once since school and that was last year’s tournament! A huge amount of fun but not much knitting there!

Following Netball, with unbelievably aching muscles there had to be the promise of something good to drag me out of bed early on Saturday…

Hmmm – A day the Iknit Weekender and a course on Icelandic Lopi Knitting  with Ragga Eirikdottir was enough to get me out of bed!

I wanted to learn something new and have a bit of a challenge – exactly what I got!

Ragga told us some of the history of Icelandic knitting and about Lopi yarn – its a kinda “pre-wool” – unspun, light and fluffy and breaks easily

There’s lots of info on the Knitting Iceland site if you want to know more. Definitely worth a look!

Then we got to make a mini Lopaypeysa.

So cute!

From Little Lopi

This is what people always think of as the traditional Icelandic, thick, patterned yoke jumper. Although we learnt from Ragga that this has only been “traditional” since the 1950s!

So what did I learn?

Firstly – German Twisted cast on to start off with – I’d done Long Tail Cast On before  but this is even better – very stretchy and doesn’t have an ugly wrong side either…

From Little Lopi

Try learning it!! ( Lots on Google for Twisted German Cast On)

Lopaypeysa are all knit in the round. Sleeves, body, yoke – the lot. So  I learnt to do magic loop with one circular.

I know!! Every one has been doing that for AGES! I’m normally happy on DPNs and have avoided magic loop. All that shuffling of stitches up and down the needle seemed way too much faffing about for me. But  I gave myself a little kick and decided I was there to learn new things, put away my DPNS and got to grips with it.

I made two tiny sleeves…

…and there was colourwork with two colours (could do that already- phew!)

……and there was joining the sleeves to the body…

Hmmmm

That really stumped me

I’m really not sure what the picture was in my head but I could not visualise how this worked…

Fortunately, I was sitting next to Marianne( excellent shawl knitter and the impossibly neat  hand winder of balls of laceweight yarn) who helped me – Thank you!

I tried to describe how the sleeve join but came out with a long confusing ramble…basically, leave stitches at armpit on sleeve and body on waste yarn and knit back, front and over the top of both sleeves like this…

From Little Lopi

The armpit is kitchener stitched later when you’re done.

A few rounds of  colour work with some nifty decreasing , a ribbed collar and I was done.

From Little Lopi

I had a great time – hard to keep up, learning new things and inspired to find out a whole lot more about…

From Little Lopi

What a busy week – and most of it knitting related

I have a back-log (back-blog? blog-log?) of blog posts for you – I just need the time to photograph and write them up – this beats struggling to find something interesting to say about purple square no.93!

Part of my busy week has been taking TWO knitting workshops! I’ll tell you about the first one today….

On Thursday, I took the Creative Kidsilk Haze workshop at John Lewis, Bluewater with Sarah Hazell.

I had booked this nearly 6 months ago as a day out for Guilty Knitters Mel, Anita, Judie and I – we were as excited as 6 year olds going to the circus

Sarah showed us sample of lots of different techniques with KSH and gave us patterns to try them out. We were then let loose on a multicoloured heap of the lovely fluffy, kitten-belly soft yarn to see what we could come up with. It was playtime….

I was wowed by the notion of combing the colour wash technique, used in my Earthstripe wrap (That’s where you hold 2 strands of KSH together and change the colour of one of the strands to blend colours together) AND moss stitch.

I grabbed a beautiful aubergine colour and a slickly green that I would never normally choose and my favourite “Jelly” green.

I was rather thrilled with how good they looked – note to self – colours you don’t like much can look great with other colours!

Must do something with this…

From kidsilk haze day

Then I played with combining Rowan Siena with KSH (I have lots of Jaeger Siena in my stash too )

Like this too!

From kidsilk haze day

And then there was the less successful trial with huge needles and an eyelet pattern…

From kidsilk haze day

Lastly, several of us played with the corsage pattern – it was very sweet…

Anita and Mel’s corsages…

From kidsilk haze day

And my attempt!

From kidsilk haze day

It was a lovely day out, playing and immersed in KSH.

Yes, I could have done a lot of that at home with my extensive stash but somehow I never quite find the time….

I love the new Rowan magazine no.48.

This one

From Hetty

It’s been a really long time since I’ve been excited by the contents of a Rowan mag but this one did it for me.

I wasn’t so keen on the first “story” all big chunky yarns – we know from my Big Wool Bonfire that this stuff isn’t for me.

But it did make me laugh – how can Rowan unfailingly have a garment that looks like a couple of old bathroom mats, staped together at the shoulders and belted??

I give you Roamer…

From Hetty

(Sorry if you’ve just cast this on )

I loved the Russian doll story – mouthwatering complicated fairisles and intarsias that challenged whether I could make one – I do love drooling over things I think might be too hard!

Then there were the Kidsilk Haze garments … Ohhh – we know I have a small amount in stash don’t we?? Rowan are such pushers of their Cracksilk Haze drug…

I like them all but zeroed in on Hetty…

This one…

From Hetty

Would you believe – in my vast KSH stash – I didn’t have enough of any of the colours to make it. I couldn’t possibly justify going out and buying  KSH when I have over a hundred balls sitting in my knit-room?? Could I ?

I decided to experiment with what colour ways would work with the stash I had – although I allowed myself to buy one small fix of Jelly – the lurid green – it does get into everything!

The problem was I couldn’t visualise where the different colours would go – it’s a rather complicated colour mix – different on the sleeves to the body…

I turned to my favourite PC application,  Visio, and mocked up a garment in the original colours…

From Hetty

Then assigned each of the colours to a layer so I could change all the “Jelly” stripes and Dewberry stripes to another colour with a couple of clicks…

If you have Visio, want to play with your own colour combos  and want a copy of my file and instructions how to use it- click here to download but you do need the Visio software for it to work!

So here is my Autumnal Version…

From Hetty

And utilising some Purple “Violetta” I have…

From Hetty

And cos I have a lot of black sparkly…

From Hetty

And a pretty girly pink using a very pale peach, cream, blushes and fondant…

From Hetty

Isn’t it amazing how different they can look?

I’m still not sure if I’ll actually knit Hetty – It could take a month to decide on colours….

I showed Ben and he instantly hated it so no direction from there 

Which do you like??

Still….Fun playing, Huh?

Gosh! I’m expecting to be mobbed for an autograph and and be asked to open a shopping centre the next time I go out amongst my public….

Why am I deluded into thinking I have achieved such superstar status??

The Guilty Knitters and I have made it to the National Knitting press!

This month’s (July 2010, Issue 21) of The Knitter has a two page gallery spread about us.

That’s this mag if you’re searching the Newsagent for a copy…

From The Knitter

I do enjoy The Knitter, lots of challenging interesting patterns and articles. So many of the other British knitting mags are full very simple patterns and assume the majority of knitters knit for their grandchildren! No problem with that if that’s what you want – but I’m not that market.

If you have a copy, check out page 84 to find my grinning face…..

From The Knitter

…and some fabby knits by my friends…It’s easy to see where my inspiration comes from and why I have to keep the standard of my knitting up, after see how great  their projects are.

Of course, my biggest fan and helper had to check out the article too,

“Not enough cats!”  was his only comment!

From The Knitter

Do you remember how we painted the Conservatory a striking shade of green?

Well, we’ve now put some furniture and plants in there and created a favourite snoozing spot for Mewsley!

From Double Vision Cushion

Do you like the cushion on the chair behind Mewsley? It was bought on a whim from Ikea.

Here’s a better look (right way up too!!)..

From Double Vision Cushion

We really wish we’d bought a second one we liked it so much but they have discontinued it – Bah!!

There was only one thing for it – Knit a matching cushion!

First I gathered all my likely green and yellow stash wools together in a big heap…

From Double Vision Cushion

Then I had a couple of disastrous attempts at randomly combining them – You can laugh at these attemps if you like – I did

The random stripe disaster…

From Double Vision Cushion

Then the random colour blocks using the Ten Stitch Blanket pattern.

From Double Vision Cushion

This is a clever pattern that spirals out from the centre. The problem was my attempt at random colour blocks! Looked like something a very old beginner knitter might do to use up oddments…

The pattern is better suited to random dye yarns and when done properly, looks like this…

From Double Vision Cushion

So enough of laughing at my failures…what did I choose?

I’ve always gasped with amazement at the beautiful Afghans designed by Pat Ashforth and Steve Plummer of Woolly Thoughts.

I was thrilled to see their Double Vision Afghan technique as a Cushion.

From Double Vision Cushion

The cushion uses 4 colours and blends them in all possible combinations (with yarn doubled) to give the 16 squares.

I chose my 4 colours and some ancient black mohair (left over from a long dead 1984, cropped mohair jumper) and got carried away….

What do you think so far? I really trying to mirror the colours and proportions of the Ikea cushion…

From Double Vision Cushion

From Double Vision Cushion

I am so pleased I can’t wait to finish!

Of course, that is just one side…

I like having the back of a cushion different so I’m knitting diagonally (so I can easily get the right size) and repeating 4 rows of each of the 10 possible colour combinations.

Like this so far…

From Double Vision Cushion

Hopefully, this will be finished a bit quicker than Halcyon….

…which has taken a shamefully long time to knit….watch this space for an update….