When I saw a bag of 10 skeins of Louisa Harding’s hand dyed Grace Silk DK for a silly bargain price of £2.90 a skein I couldn’t resist.

Just look at it…isn’t that pretty?

From Beatriz Silkwool

I eagerly started to look for a pattern to use it…

Hmmmmm Actually – there’s not that much yardage in each skein – probably because the silk is heavy. It’s a good thing I’m a small size as I didn’t have enough yarn for several of my choices and I needed a pattern that would lend itself to the floppy, drapey nature of the yarn.

Then inspiration hit me – I had the Rowan Lenpur book from when I made Katia - remember Katia?

This is the book I mean…

From Beatriz Silkwool

Lenpur in a linen yarn and very, very floppy so I hope that the patterns will suit the Silk Wool. In that book I found what I hope will be the perfect garment – Beatriz.

Here’s the book pic….

From Beatriz Silkwool

I had a bumpy start to Beatriz – not least because the hand dying process seems to have welded some of the Grace silk fibers together making balling the skeins on my swift a “swear-worthy” task

Then there was the “What size? What needle size dilemma?”….

“Oh Dear, I’m slap in the middle of the first two sizes”, Thinks Susan. Hmmmm… ,”I’ll make the larger one….”

…..several inches later….

“Hmmmm, that’s feeling a bit stiff and I really have to tug it to pretend I have the right gauge”

……..< Swearing >

……Starting again….

So, I’m now knitting the smaller size but on 4.5mm needles rather than the 4mm given. I’m using two balls at a time – 4 rows from each ball – so and variation between skeins isn’t too obvious.

Wanna see her so far?

From Beatriz Silkwool

Not bad huh? I know this is fabulous yarn but part of me is never quite as thrilled with these variagated, hand dyed yarns when they are knit up – I guess I like solid colours.

So wanna see a close up?

From Beatriz Silkwool

Pretty though huh? So far so good….

But now I’m starting to worry it’ll be too big!

I think my mojo must be well and truly back because I think my next project is gorgeous!

Here’s a clue…You should be able to guess the yarn at least (if you know my stash )

From Modern Quilt Wrap

So did you guess it’s Rowan’s Kidsilk Haze? What else would be such a “Mojo Invigorator” for me huh?

So what am I making? It’s the Modern Quilt Wrap by Mags Kandis. <–Click the pattern name is you want a copy of the free pattern from Knitting Daily.

Here’s the front page of the pattern…

From Modern Quilt Wrap

Isn’t that just the thing to brighten up a dull winter coat?

The pattern calls for 9 different coloured balls of Kidsilk Haze. That’s quite an investment (over £70) if you have to go out and buy all the balls. I’m certain that the wrap won’t use more than half a ball of each colour so leftovers must be an option (I’ll keep you posted on the yarn amounts used) Too much to spend so I thought I’d see what I had in stash, play with the colour combinations and maybe buy one or two balls if I needed to…

…I had 7 of the given colours in stash! My good knitterly friends Mel and Judie swooped to my rescue with the last two colours after a very enjoyable afternoon of Kidsilk stash diving and swapsies.

I still felt like I should put my spin on the colour combinations…but then I looked at this…

From Modern Quilt Wrap

Those are just too beautiful together to mess with- Mags Kandis knows how to put colours together – who am I to argue

The pattern is straight forward domino knitting – something I’ve been meaning to dabble with for ages. Each square is picked up and knitted one colour at a time, onto the previous square – with two decreases in the middle on alternate rows to make the corner. Here’s the vital diagram from the pattern…

From Modern Quilt Wrap

You start at the bottom left and keep adding the squares – you make this set of blocks twice for the full wrap.  There is a written explanation for each square too.

So how far have I got? With all the enforced “sitting with my post operative foot up” I have got along quite quickly…

From Modern Quilt Wrap

Isn’t that delectable? Believe me – it’s more beautiful with the sunshine behind it. Like a stained glass window.

Close up?? Ok…

From Modern Quilt Wrap

As you can see – it’s all garter stitch. Easy to knit but picking up the stitches is “fun”. I have learnt that picking up the “knobbles” and only a single strand makes a much neater pickup that grabbing the loop in between the garters. Pretty neat on the back so far…

From Modern Quilt Wrap

Time to pour a glass of wine, join the lovely Ben in the garden in the last of today’s fabulous sunshine and knit another square…this beast is getting addictive!

Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment but, my next project is another Kim Hargreaves. I will break that “Kim Hargreaves Curse” if it kills me!

Usually I have at least 10 things I’m itching to start and another 20 patterns I kinda like too. This time there was much gnashing and wailing and flinging of pattern books – I had a hard time finding something I wanted to knit…

…”Whaaa! I want some plain stocking stitch knitting cos my last few projects have been moss stitch, cables and fairisle!”

……”Gnash, Wail! I must use some of my stash”…

……….”Sulk. Be nice to have a success this time”…

Eventually, I calmed myself down from my frenzy of  ”There is nothing in the 88 books, 97 magazines and 53 booklets I have logged in Ravelry I could possibly knit” and decided on a pattern I have long had my eye on.

It’s from Kim Hargreaves Thrown Together book. This one…

From Still

…And I have chosen Still – a 1040′s inspired top in Rowan Calmer.

Piccies from the book….

From Still

Love that neck line – hope it works!!

From Still

Still is knitted on 5mm needles so is coming together very quickly and suits my need for an easy, quick project. Wanna see??
…Woosh! After 1 week…

From Still

I gotta say, I do like the horizontal rib – a sweet touch…

From Still

Let see if I can keep up the momentum – this one is looking promising

Ghaaaah!My head hurt from smashing it repeatedly onto my desk … This pattern is not well written.

I’m still plugging away at Elizabeth from Kim Hargreaves. After finding the errata and having to reknit the back, I quite naturally, started on the front. (this post does get more exciting – I promise…)

All was going well – the pattern spelt out the short row shaping to get the lovely curve in great detail, row by row…

Then the waist shaping – 10 rows of this, 12 rows of that, 10 rows something or other….

All was happy in my knitting bag ….

Then to “Shape Font Neck and Collar”

6 rows in, it’s as if Kim realised she was taking up to much space with the pattern; There is a garbled paragraph explaining, collar increases, front decreases, armhole shaping and (get this) continue edge shaping as for the back!

I’m an experienced knitter. I can fathom most patterns but this was an exercise in logic and arithmetic. I had to go back a write out what I had done for the back so I could apply the same shapings to the front. Then work out all the front and collar stuff . Urgh, after a long day at work I didn’t need this. I perfectly capable of working out the arithmetic in a pattern but I don’t want to – I have enough details stress at work- that’s why I buy patterns and don’t write much of my own. Grrrr!..

Sorry Kim – no two ways about it – that section was very badly written.

Eventually, I think I worked out the logic, wrote out the rows and finished the front. Here she is…

From Elizabeth

After all that head-hurty-fathoming of the pattern, WOW! It’s a really good design!

The curve at the back follows onto the fronts (Kim’s usual foray into short row shaping).
The waist shaping is detailed and (after a holding it up to see if it fits session) looks like i’s perfect for me.
The collar is also beautifully done. a column of reverse stocking stitch divides the main body from the collar and gives a neat fold line (something I wish I’d had in other patterns!)

From Elizabeth

And the wrong side view…

From Elizabeth

Then we have a notch in the collar – Kim gives clear directions on how to cast off and cast on with an extra stitch between each stitch to make sure it doesn’t pull tight.

Lastly you extend the collar belond the shoulder so it wrap around the back of the neck – all very well done.

All is  good again.

Well – I say good – that was one front….an attack of SKS (Summer Knitting Slump) later I’m having a hard time doing the other front!!

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!!

Happy Easter! It’s a glorious sunny day and while lounging and knitting in the sunshine, I realised I  haven’t told you about my progress with the lovely green cashmere…

I’ve completed the back and the front …but it’s the front I want to tell you about today.

From Green Cashmere

I love the way the cable in this design, splits and frames the V neck. The best bit is – It’s incredibly easy to achieve – I’ll show you…

That fat cable in the middle is worked over 20 stitches. Every 10 rows you C10B (Cable 10 Back) then immediately C10F (Cable 10 Front). When you divide for the neck, you split in the middle of this fat cable. All you need to do then is make a stitch at the centre edge to always be purled to make a neat edging and you’re set. Like this…

From Green Cashmere

Once you’ve got you neck divided all you do is end the row with a “C10B, P1″ and carry on…
“But what about the neck shaping?”, You ask…

That’s easy too – to do the increase, p2tog on the 2 stitches preceding the C10B. It makes a lovely neat neck….

From Green Cashmere

That just leaves the back of the neck to worry about…

You simply do your shoulder shaping and carry on with the C10B until it’s long enough to sew in place at the back of the neck. Like this…

From Green Cashmere

One last thing to say about the front – I do love a pattern that is well enough designed to think about where the cables fall at the armholes – look at this – just perfect with the cable running up the armhole edge and a spare stitch to sew up with

From Green Cashmere

Now I guess, all that’s left for me to do is get those sleeves done… this far and counting

From Green Cashmere

Firstly I must say thank you for all the wonderful message of support and sympathy on my last post about poor Thug. You have no idea how much you all helped me. Huge hugs to all you guys

So. How has the knitting faired through all the upset?

Unfortunately, I really wasn’t in the mood to apply myself to fiddly finishing of Lilliana – my fluffy Kidsilk Aura creation. She has lain in the corner, forlorn and abandoned…

From Green Cashmere

I’ll get back to Lilliana at some point….

What I really needed was some indulgent, lovely, treat of a knitting project…..Hmmmm….Wasn’t in the mood to go buy anything (yep, I felt that bad!)….should be trying to keep to my new year’s resolution of knitting up my “snaffled in the sales” yarn…

Mewsley came up with the perfect suggestion, as she nosed a box of yarn towards me…..Cashmere based grief counselling!

From Green Cashmere

It was a good idea. The Rowan Cashmere is fabulously soft and I adore that shade of green. It’s labelled as a Double Knitting but it is on the very fine side of DK. What pattern? Fortunately I have just the thing.

I’m going to remake my favourite French Cable Jumper that I blogged here.

This is the pattern from Bergere De France ….

From Green Cashmere

And me wearing my first incarnation of this pattern from Donkey’s years ago (where I appear to be over thrusting my chest?!!)…

From

So back to the here and now…

I suspected the Cashmere would be thinner than the Bergere De France Berlaine that I knit the original in so I did a swatch….Very unusual for me! The swatch seemed OK, measured the right gauge…

I curled up on the sofa, cast on an knit furiously trying to ignore the lack of a ginger cat to help me. I was thoroughly enjoying the Cashmere and the pattern was difficult enough to distract me and keep me absorbed – all good huh?

Unfortunately, it came up a bit small! The bloody swatch lied to me!!

Mewsley tried to hide the evidence from me but there was too much knitting for her to obscure….

From Green Cashmere

Nothing for it but the cast on again on bigger needles – 3.75mm this time, rather than 3.50 called for in the pattern. Was I upset? Strangely no. I usually hate re-knitting but this time all I wanted was to sit and concentrate on knitting to stop me thinking about Thug – I didn’t mind what I knitted.

Quite a bit of Cashmere based therapy later, I am this far (the one on the right)…

From Green Cashmere

Doesn’t look much different huh? Believe me – under the tape measure it is.

Wanna see a close up of those lovely cables? Course you do….

From Green Cashmere

In case you’re wondering – there are three different cable patterns – each one has a different row repeat too making it a challenge to keep track of. How do I cope?
With a notebook and my trusty highlighters of course…

You can laugh at my tatty scrap of paper if you like but this is my key to getting this one right – the pink rows are the centre cable, the green is  the little barley twists and the yellow is the chain done over 6 rows.

From Green Cashmere

All I need now is to find more knitting time!

It’s been a bad knitting week

Do I mean a bad week to find time for knitting or that I’ve knit really badly? Unfortunately…Both!

We have spent the last few weekends decorating our office at home. It really needed doing – we spend a great deal of time in there and it was frankly, depressingly shabby, dull and grim… It was a slog but worth the effort.

Unfortunately, in the little time I had left to knit, I was very tired…can you guess what happens when a very tired knitter tackles fairisle???

Huh? Can ya?

Yup – I screwed up

So. The body of Liliana is done, just the “easy” sleeves to knock out. They are plain red stocking stitch with a 5 row band of fairisle at the wrist – like this…

From Lilianna

Really not hard.

After whipping through the body, what could possible go wrong? I was looking forward to an “easy sleeve”…

I whizzed past the patten and halfway up the sleeve when I realised, those rows of plain black are one row each…for some unfathomable reason I had done two rows of black for each stripe. I consulted with the Guilty Knitters,

“It’s fine, just do the other sleeve to match….” I was persuaded. (Quite easily actually!)

Then I noticed – I had dropped a stitch in the fairisle section – two errors were more than I could accept so I ripped back and lost an entire morning’s knitting (I hate ripping back and wasting good knitting time!)

In the process, I managed disembowel my formerly centre pull ball of Kidsilk Aura and create this delicate mess that threatens to tangle every time I look at it.

From Lilianna

I started again  on the sleeve that evening….while tired…

I got this far…

From Lilianna

…and couldn’t work out why the pattern on the fairisle looked wrong, I had one less stitch than I thought I should have and there were a couple of odd looking stitches in the fairisle I couldn’t “wiggle” into place….

I had dropped a stitch in the same place…AGAIN!

From Lilianna

I’m ashamed to say, I had a serious knitterly tantrum.

I flung the erroneous sleeve across the room and haven’t looked at it for a week   It has been a very long time since I’ve physically flung knitting

I usually restrict myself to some heartfelt swearing…

We’ve finished the office now. It’s a clean, fresh, duckegg blue and very tidy. I’m glad we did it – exhausting as it was.  I’ve even managed to reuse the curtains I blogged about making (with Mewsley’s help) a few years ago – Gasp! In 2007!!!

I have tidy cupboards, made from cannibalising an old cupboard, reconfiguring it and adding some new parts and doors…

From Lilianna

Room for me and the lovely Ben to work at home (in front of the lovely curtains!)…

From Lilianna

And most importantly, Thug’s basket is back in his favourite spot, under the desks, by the radiator

From Lilianna

Now that’s the office is finished- time to rip back that sleeve …again.

I’ve been decorating again – this time our office where we both frequently work from home so huge disruption at our house! Computers and cupboards in every room, getting in the way

Not as much inspiration as decorating the knit room but at least this time we have the furniture and just needed to paint the room a pretty pale blue. Photos when it looks less of a bomb site.

So, with all this hard labour going on – not much time to blog but I have had time to knit….quite a lot of fluffy knitting!

Lilliana has been absorbing …

I pushed through these three colour rows (it’s the pointy red bits that are 3 colour)…

From Lilianna

Thanks to Naomi, for the tip about slipping the stitches for the third colour – made perfect sense, though I should have thought of it -myself. Unfortunately I’d already got past the 3 colour rows!

Then I chickened out of the whole steek idea – as JulesM pointed out, it was 2 colour knitting only after the armholes. To be honest -doing it flat  wasn’t as bad as I remembered 

So I whizzed up the back doing the rather fun black and white section.I’m really pleased with how it came out…

From Lilianna

There are some long floats in this design but I only wove them when they were over more than 5 stitches to try and avoid the colours showing through. The floats won’t be much of a problem as the extremely fluffy Aura is starting to matt together on the back already!
Like this…

From Lilianna

It was neat – honest!

Here’s the back of the three colour pointy bits too…

From Lilianna

The whole garment is very fluffy and will be immensely warm – my one concern though – it may end up being a little small. The measurements only have 1″ of ease designed in. Fingers crossed.

So how far am I?

This is the completed back…

From Lilianna

And I’m nearly at the neck shaping on the front…

From Lilianna

Nearly done – then just the nearly plain sleeves to go.

With all the decorating disruption and  frantic knitting, Thug , who had been helping, advising and supervising, settled down with a nice Kidsilk Aura pillow…

From Lilianna

…and got  fed up with being woken up and photographed and gave me “a look”!

From Lilianna

So which project to start first from my “snuffled up greedily in the sales” yarn?

First – what exactly is the scope of this resolution?? What yarn to I mean?

Hmmm…every thing in this blog post “Yarn Sales – Being Good, Bad and Disorganised“, plus the gorgeous, green cashmere from my last post. Actually, It’s not to use all of it but to make a garment from each lot of yarn – I’m not gonna stress about an odd ball left over!

That works out as 2 Kidsilk Aura jumpers (patterns decided in Yarn Sales post – Liliana and Gelsey), a yet to be decided it in Silky Tweed and something in the Cashmere.

But what to start now? It was between the beautifully, cloud soft, green cashmere and Liliana in Kidsilk Aura…

Liliana won! Mainly because I need a warm suggly jumper now and I won’t be very inspired to knit it in the summer!

So this is the Rowan pic of Liliana…

From Lilianna

from the Kidsilk Aura Collection…

From Lilianna

I loved the colourway in the pattern book and didn’t want to change it. Lucky for me, all but one of the colours were available in the sale. Damn. No steel grey…until I got home and found I had snapped up some of that colour in last year’s sale! Yey! for huge stashes!

These colours – my kinda colours

From Lilianna

So off to the pattern…

Grrr

There are two things I dislike about Rowan Fairisle patterns. They are written to be knitted flat and they frequently have three different colours in one row. I’ll explain…

Fair isle in MUCH easier in the round, doing just knit stitches and being able to see your pattern. If you need to weave in long strands, it’s easier too.

So why the problem with three colours in a row? Traditional Fairisle only ever has two colours in a row. As I knit fair isle with one colour in each hand, two colours works great for me and I can keep the yarns untangled – especially relevant when using Kidsilk Aura – sticks to itself like cheap clingfilm! Three colours for me, take much longer and it doesn’t flow. Boo!

So this is the graph I’m working from…

From Lilianna

Fortunately, my “three colour nemesis” only occurs on about 12 rows – I’ll just have to slog through.

I have also addressed the problem of it being a “flat” knit by knitting in the round, doing the back and front together.I’m undecided what to do about the armholes though!
I could either, work some waste stitches and steek them (I’m sure this would work with Aura as it’s so sticky) and join the sleeve cap to the steek (bit worried about the bulk of the steeked bit) or knit back and forth for the armholes upwards. What do you guys think?
Suggestions gratefully received!

So progress shot so far? Here you are!

From Lilianna

Do you ever pause, just before dashing out of the house in the morning, saying to yourself,

“I can’t face that train journey without some knitting”?

I do!

Apart from being valuable knitting time, knitting helps me ignore the the “less pleasant and irritating” aspects of some of the other commuters. Anyone who has ever taken a rushhour train in London won’t need that elaborated on!

I had about 4 minutes to spare before I had to leave so this was a quick decision – Socks!

Grab the nearest sock yarn from my stash and the faithful, boring Regia free pattern I always seem to knit. Stuff in my knit pouch and run for the train.

For a project started with so little thought – I’m rather pleased!

The yarn is Garnstudio DROPS Fabel – some I bought with my friend Judie a couple of years ago at a knit show (Ally Pally I think). The nice lady on the stand said 3 balls would make 2 pairs of socks so Judie and I bought 3 balls each of two different colours and swapped what we didn’t use. Judie finished both her pairs ages ago!

It’s not a thrilling commuting project but ideal for the train and those funky colours wake me up in the morning too!!

From Easy for the train

Happy New Year!

You may be wondering how I’m getting on with Flag – after all, I’ve had the Christmas break to knit haven’t I??

The truth is … I’m Flagging (pun intended!)  It has gotten so boring!

I’ve finished the fun intasia “flag section” – that was a pleasure to knit and has come out beautifully. The fabric is lovely and is going to drape perfectly.

Then I started on the sleeves and had several false starts.

The sleeves are supposed to be knit in the round on DPNs. I didn’t have and 5mm DPNs so I used a circular and did magic loop (should have just gone and bought the DPNS). Yes, hard as it is to believe there are some sizes of needle I don’t own!

The sleeves are garter stitch which means knit a row then purl a row when knit in the round – not hard huh? I just could not get this right! It was so bloody annoying – I lost track of the start point, did 2 knit rows and generally made a mess.

My solution has been to abandon knitting in the round and do the sleeve flat and sew it up later – nice easy knit every row. I may come to regret that decision as the seam will run up the back of the sleeve – depends how neatly I can join the garter stitch….

Looks like this so far…

From Flag

The only problem with knitting it flat is that has made it rather dull to knit and I have been avoiding it

Listen to me whining – I want my cake and eat it.

So, do you want to see the flaggy bit and the progress so far??

From Flag

I really need to get this finished so I can get on with my new purchases from the sales
(More news on that to come!!)

Yarns firmly under control, I was whizzing along with Flag and getting through the rows on the chart very quickly – too quickly – alarmingly quickly…..

Bugger!

I had managed to misread this very large, clear instruction at the top of the chart (I’m doing size “S”)…

From Flag

I read one square as “4 stitches and 4 rows” not “4 stitches and 8 rows” (4 garters).  I really am getting to be a very silly, careless knitter who would have ended up with a rather stunted garment

It wasn’t entirely a bad thing though – I wasn’t happy with that “quick”  Thumb cast on – it looked sloppy.

And I hadn’t quite mastered the weaving in of yarn when the colour travels to right (all described on Helen’s tutorials) and I had left too long floats

See what I mean??

From Flag

It did give me a sneak preview of how it was turning out though

From Flag

Nothing for it but to treat it as a learning experience and start again….

Properly… with a neat “long tail cast on”…

paying attention to the pattern instructions!

A much better cast on edge this time…

From Flag

And I’m getting those floats nicely under control – in fact the wrong side is looking pretty neat and tidy now…

From Flag

I’m really glad I started again – It’s all much improved

I had one little hiccup with my yarn box – I had only made 12 slots for yarn balls and after a few rows I needs number 13.

I thought I had found a practical and innovative solution to my “one more ball” problem. Ben, of course, expressed incredulous amusement  -in the form of pointing and laughing! Hurumpf… Surely a loo roll centre isn’t  that funny ?

From Flag

So you must be wondering how far I’ve got?

I could tease you and say I’ve just done the provisional stitches that mark where the arm holes go at the top of the horizontal red srtipe…

From Flag

But really this is the picture you’re waiting to see – slipped onto a spare circular for the photo shoot…

..Half way there!

From Flag

I have really got the “Iceland” bug!

As well as doing my Lopi Course with Ragga Eirikdottir, I’ve now discovered Icelandic Intarsia, courtesy of Helene Magnusson – the other half of Knitting Iceland – and this wonderful pattern of Helene’s from Knitonthenet.

This is really tuning out to be a romp – a tale of being too clever for my own good and of fashioning knitting equipment out of the recycling bin!

Here’s the Pattern’s pics of what I’m attempting to make…

From Flag

This is “Flag” and is a free pattern from issue 10 of knitonthenet => Click here for the pattern

After all that intarsia in the flower blanket, I must be mad for taking this on but I was wowed by the cardigan – just the kind of thing I’ve been wearing lately And Lots of ways to wear it!

From Flag

From Flag

So what’s Icelandic Intarsia? It’s just like “normal” intarsia but it’s in garter stitch. You do need to take the yarn to the wrong side of the work when you cross them over at colour changes though. Helene’s website has an extremely informative tutorial and some background history so I won’t even attempt to describe it more here.

Flag is knit in Jamieson & Smith 2 ply laceweight – wonderful yarn but very thin! Fortunately it’s knit on 5mm needles so this shouldn’t take me til Christmas to make

I was also surprised at how reasonable priced the yarn was for this project – the whole thing (in my size) for under £30  I’d never get a big Rowan Cardie for that!

The first thing to do with this pattern is to make 2 balls out of each of the balls of yarn (because you have 13 colours on the go at once!!)

That was an evening of “fun with ball winder”…

From Flag

Frustrating when all you want to do is cast on and get going. At last I had a heap of little yarn cakes…

From Flag

I rashly decided to cast on with a thumb cast on (cos it was quick!!) and started…deliberately ignoring one of the first instructions in the pattern…

“The key to this pattern is yarn management”

“I can juggle the balls of wool”, I thought , “I’ve been wise and have made centre pull balls…I’m a clever knitter….”

Not as clever as I thought!

Within about 4 rows I was getting in a hopeless tangle. Back to reading the sage advice on Helene’s website about yarn management…

The advice was to make a yarn box out of old cereal boxes to hold the balls of wool in the order you use them ….sounds mad huh??

Apparently, On the right side rows, as you change colours and pass them over each other – the colours twist together and on the wrong side they unwind and untangle as if by magic. I was not convinced!

“It’ll never work!”, “madness!!”

But I had a tangled mess of a project I really wanted to complete so I went into “Blue Peter”mode, got out the sticky back plastic and raided the recycling bin for cereal boxes…

(For anyone who’s not from the UK and wonders what “Blue Peter” is, it’s a much loved children’s TV program that always had a feature on making things from old bottles, cereal boxes and sticky backed plastic…you kinda had to be there!)

A cereal box, a lightbulb box, some strips of card to divide the yarn, some staples and some sellotape later I had the most amazing contraption!

From Flag

Ben couldn’t stop laughing – TSK! 

I wedged the balls of yarn in their slots and tried a couple of row….

First the yarns twisted into a pleasing ladder…

From Flag

Then on the next row, they obediently untwisted and and were straight and untangled again. I was astonished.

I am truly impressed at how effective the technique is …

…if a little Heath Robinson!

With my yarn now firmly under control in the yarnbox at my feet, I’m whizzing along on the 5mm needles and garter stitch..

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

Or perhaps this post should be called, “Stupid, Stupid, Stupid”

So here’s how I was reduced to “Despair filled wailing”…

I’m onto the last flower of the blanket….

I’m rushing around, grabbing my knitting, ready to go meet the Guilty Knitters for my Sunday morning knit-fest.

Quick look at the plan to see what flower it is…

From Flower Blanket

Yep, Yep, it’s a lilac background, purple petalled one…

Quick look at the blanket…yep, yep, that’s the one with no centre but a ring of beads…

I grab the necessary stuff…

I force myself to do the intarsia square, spurred on by the thought that it’s the last one. I really didn’t want to be knitting it. I drew on all my knitterly resolve to keep going…

I showed the Guilty Knitters my new project, that I have foolishly bought and is sitting looking at me, waiting to be started…It made it harder to persevere (More of that when I’ve done the evil Flower Blanket)

I got home, did chores, made dinner, then slogged through the flower, the end nearly in sight…

Something wasn’t right

This is what I was knitting…

From Flower Blanket

Hmmm…Right colours in the right places….

I looked up and saw the blanket, this square caught my eye…

From Flower Blanket

“NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!”

I had knit the wrong flower.

I wailed, I sore, I threw the evil, cursed, wrong flower down on the sofa and sobbed.

Poor Ben thought I had at least accidentally amputated a limb or  garotted a cat. He wisely retreated, quickly, followed by a couple of slightly worried cats.

This is the flower I should have knit…

From Flower Blanket

Same colours, different flower…

I can’t believe I was so Stupid, Stupid, Stupid In the whole blanket that’s the first time I’ve made that mistake.

Nothing for it but to dry my eyes, rip it out and start again on the correct flower…

It kinda took the thrill out of finishing all the squares but I now have 100 squares, sewn together in a 10 x 10 blanket….

Just the edging to work out

So here I am, basking in compliments from my knitterly friends on how the admire my resolve to get back to one WIP at a time. Their encouragement is spurring me on to great feats of blanket square knitting – two whole squares on one train ride to Bristol!

I have eagerly completed strip no.9 and finished and sewn into a strip, the squares for no.10.

I excited thought, “I’ll just throw it on the bed to see how it looks – not far to go now!”

Ohhh….

Errrrmmm….

That’s not quite what I had in mind…

From Flower Blanket

The 9 squares wide isn’t quite wide enough to look convincing on the bed…..and if I carry on for 13 strips – it’s be up and over the pillows!

All is not lost – it’s a simple repeating pattern so, even at this late stage, I can change it.

The good thing is, that Mewsley had an opportunity to do the “Snugglability testing”… I think she approved!

From Flower Blanket

But here’s the maths problem – 9 x 13 squares means 117 squares – I just have enough of the lilac colour for this many (remember I have an edging to do too)

So I can’t replan with more than 117 squares….

Hmmm – leave it at 9×9 like in the picture??

Nope! That looks stingy and I’ve done nearly all the squares for strip No.10…

10 x 10 (100 squares) seems like an option??

I drew out the plan for 10 x 11 (110 squares)

From Flower Blanket

Hmm – that would just look lopsided – just “off” square would irritate me….

And I’m starting to get a little bored with this now…time to wind it up…

… 10 x 10 it is…
Like this…

From Flower Blanket

So far so good!

From Flower Blanket

Just 7 more squares and an edging to do…

So what am I knitting right now while dreaming up Hetty colourways?

I’m still trying to get back to being “one WIP at a time” girl. I hate having half done projects hiding in corners, reproaching me for abandoning them.

So I had the choice of my two remaining WIPS – My see-through sweater or my nearly finished Flower Blanket…

Flower Blanket wins!!!

This has been a bit of a saga…If you want to read the previous blog posts about this blankie they are here:-

Purple Flower Blanket – The Design Phase

Flower Blanket – The knitting begins

Flower Blanket – Taking Shape

The Blanket Rules

Cat Subdues Yarn and a Dumb Blunder

Not Enough Yarn!

I Need More Knitting Time

And the Flower Blanket Goes On

It won’t take long to complete the knitting will it??  After all It’s nearly finished…. isn’t it??

Out it came…

…where’s the rest of it???

“Thug!”, I yelled, “Help me look for more blanket!”

He did quite a bit of searching as you can see…

From Flower Blanket

Nope! He didn’t find any more than the barely half done blanket I already had.

Probably because he is a cat and also because he is blind!!

He did suggest I check my blog – Yep, progress was there in in black (purple)  and white.

This is how I had left it…

From Flower Blanket

Six and a bit of the 13 columns of squares done – exactly half way. Urgg.

Well, I have been very dedicated and have had some dedicated supervision from both Thug and Mewsley…at the same time…

From Flower Blanket

…so I can report that I now have 85 out of 117 squares complete – 72%!!
Nearly three quarters

Here’s the plan now …

From Flower Blanket

But it looks more impressive in the flesh…

From Flower Blanket

One thing I really noticed was all the paraphernalia I have for making this blanket…

So much so that poor Ben accused me of having a “Knitgasm” on the living room floor…

You can see what he meant!!

From Flower Blanket

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….