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….