Hello again!

It's been awhile since I wrote my last blog post. Life sometimes seems to get in the way, and when I get stressed about trying to keep up my blog alongside everything else I let it slide for a bit. Funnily enough this always seems to happen around winter, I think I'm a fair weather blogger.

Still its about time I got myself on her more often. Last year was the year of the blankets, I crocheted 8 full sized ones in the end. This year I've decided is going to be the year of the socks, and not just any socks either, I'm writing my own patterns for these. The first is nearly ready, the second is halfway there, the third is roughly in my head and the fourth is a glimmering of an idea.

I want to play with colour and texture this year, try out some new techniques and create some great patterns along the way. So keep any eye out and hopefully my first pattern in awhile will be announced soon.

Some WIPs

Here's what I'm working on at the moment:

My 15 stitch blanket is on my current to finish list, now I've dithered enough over what yarn to use, bought more and then ended up using what I already had (as you do).

Another TVG (high speed knitting) like this one. This isn't really something I'm trying too hard to work on at the moment, its what I pull out if I want to concentrate on people talking etc and need a portable project.

My colourful crochet squares blanket - this is half finished but I've just had to buy some more yarn. I was enjoying making it and so I know when I got the new yarn I would dive straight into making it again and ignore the 15 stitch blanket, which was why I'm trying to be very good and not buy the yarn I need until I finished the purple blanket.I gave in in the end though. I don't have enough will power.

A Diva Tunic - I made two of these probably about four years ago. A blue one for me and a cerise pink one for my sister. My sister made the mistake of putting hers through the washing machine and felted it. As she felt suitably guilty I'm making her another one out of superwash this time!

Hmmm seeing as I started the year trying to finish one thing at a time I seem to be failing miserably here! Still once the 15 stitch blanket and the coloured crochet squares blanket are finished that will be two big projects out of the way and will give me a bit of time to finish up some of the smaller projects.

I have a secret ambition in my head to make 12 blankets this year. Whether that happens or whether I lose interest half way through I'll have to wait an see. I have plans for all 12 and I fully intend inflicting at least one on my sister, because lets face it who really needs twelve blankets!

FO - High speed knitting

My shawlette I started in London is finally finished. Here is is in all its unblocked glory:

Blocking will have to take place another day, It doesn't need much, just a little to make the garter stitch section lie flat.

This was an extremely easy pattern, the main part was garter stitch and the ruffle was a 2 x 2 rib. Its a perfect project for if you are sitting around talking and need something you don't have to concentrate on.

I can see myself making more of these as its such a quick pattern. If I hadn't hurt my shoulder I think it would have taken me about 3-4 days at most to knit which is pretty good for me.

So my first FO of the month is done. It'll probably be the only one as I'm not even half way through my blanket so I can't imagine finishing that in the next couple of weeks. Still with no interruptions I can see the main bit being finished by the end of March, although I think the border will take awhile longer.

ChiaoGoo needles

I've knitted on cheap knitting needles since I started in 2009. I've admired, coveted and researched interchangeable needles several times over the last few years but never actually done anything about it.

95% of my knitting is done on circular knitting needles, straight ones hurt my shoulders and DPN's hurt my brain! So if I got a set of interchangeables it would do for pretty much all my knitting except for small circumference stuff like socks for which I use Hiya Hiya needles:

Tall Yarns

I've put off buying interchangeables because of the price though. Not that they are that expensive for so many needle and cable combinations in one go, its more that paying a few pounds each time for new needles doesn't seem as bad as paying the equivalent of several skeins of yarn in one go.

I've always preferred to spend my spare money on yarn instead of needles. Right up until a couple of weeks ago I got out fixed circular I hadn't knit with for ages and I couldn't get the cable to unkink. It was locked into a tight spiral that got in the way every time I tried to knit and I got fed up.

I'd heard people on Ravelry raving about ChiaoGoo Twist interchangeables and I am so glad I bought some.

The cables don't kink as they have no memory. The tips are pointy without me needing a blood transfusion every time I use them. The needles and joins are smooth, these have actually made my knitting speed increase. I'm in love...

Best of all they come in the prettiest little case:

Loop

WIP - Stripy Blanket

My shoulder is nearly better. We have friends coming round tonight and I intend on getting back to my shawlette that I started last weekend.

In the meantime I have been lucky enough to be able to crochet and so my stripy crochet blanket has been growing:

It’s growing surprisingly fast and I'm enjoying making it. It’s got awhile to go yet (probably several months) but it’s very easy to pick up and put down in-between other projects.

In the meantime I have some exciting house news. When we bought our first house my mother very kindly donated a lot of furniture to us, most of which was my Grandmother's.

Most of it was a little old fashioned, but it was free and so we were able to spend our money on fixing our house rather than buying furniture. It needed a lot of fixing.

I've made changed to various bits of furniture (painting etc) but the one bit I've never really liked is the sofa and chairs in the living room. I'm not much of a green person and these are very old fashioned:

Can you see my knitting tucked down in the corner there?

I'm not going for a matching suite this time. I want a sofa and then two separate arm chairs which match each other. Probably grey or black for the chairs, but I have other ideas for the sofa.

I finally managed to track down what I wanted and it turned up on Wednesday. So I spend part of Wednesday wrestling with furniture with my bad shoulder which was probably a bad idea.

In the next couple of days I'll put some photos up and you can see what I've chosen. I should say what we've chosen, but when decorating the house I tend to make a lot of the decisions although the Husbeast does get a say, especially in the colour scheme.

January round up

Its the last day of January, how did that happen so quickly? I've barely got used to it being 2013 and already we are one month into it.

So here is my round up for the month:

Recipes tried and blogged:

Home made deodorant - I have been using this consistently since I blogged. I sometimes have to apply twice a day if I'm having a more energetic day but it works well and doesn't stain my clothes or leave white marks like commercial deodorant. My underarms also feel silky soft which is a nice side effect.

Home made sugar free chocolate - these are beautiful, five to ten minutes to make and worth every second. Even my DH makes them. I've eaten hardly any proper chocolate since making these and they cure my cravings for sweet things.





Projects started:

15 stitch blanket 

Ombre Acrylic Blanket

Posh Purple Wristwarmers & Neckwarmer









Striped Crochet Blanket - a post to come on this soon

May rose wreath










High Speed Knitted Shawl - a post to come on this soon

Projects frogged/put into the WIP Pile:

15 stitch blanket

Ombre Acrylic Blanket

Projects finished:

Posh Purple Wristwarmers and neckwarmer

May rose wreath











Yarn in:

5950g ! I don't think I've ever bought that much in one go before! In fact that's probably as much as I'd bought ever before all in one go. Good job most of it was acrylic and therefore cheap, plus I don't think I'll be buying much yarn for a few months so this should keep me going for awhile.

This converts into 17,620 meters or 10.9 miles

Yarn kitted/crocheted:

692g

2484 meters or 1.5 miles




So I have quite a bit of catching up to do,maybe I should stop buying yarn...

I did also give away 200g of yarn, which was 2200 meters or 1.4 miles which does help a little bit as that is now out of my stash.

Books reviewed:

Week 1: Alice in Wonderland

Week 2: Alice through the looking glass

Week 3: A country housewife's book

Week 4: Sense and Sensibility

Week 5:Someone at a distance

Quite a busy month I think. I hope you've enjoyed reading about my activities and continue to read my posts. I think they will probably slow down a little in February but I still hope to post at least 3 - 4 times per week.

Interruption

Today's post was either going to be about how I love my new knitting needles, or hopefully some happy pictures of a finished object. I knit 70% of a shawlette over the weekend and hoped to have it finished by today but life got in the way.

I fell over on a patch of ice on my way to work on Monday and hurt my wrist and shoulder. My wrist is 90% better by now but I flared up an old injury on my shoulder and could barely move my arm yesterday.

I'm a little better today but I still can't knit. I can crochet so I have been working on my crochet blanket. No photos yet, I'm not up to hauling it around the house and holding the camera up.

I'm trying not to be frustrated because I am okay really, its only a little injury, I'll be better in a few days I have a lot to be thankful for. But I was so close to finishing my project...

Still hopefully this is just a small interruption and maybe by the end of the weekend I'll have it finished ready to show off.

A trip to London

I've been quiet over the weekend because on Saturday I went on a trip to London. Some people from the Posh Knitters group on Ravelry decided to meet up in London and I and a lovely lady from Stafford, Carrie, went down from the Midlands to meet them.

Carrie and I hadn't met up properly before so it was lovely to finally meet. We chatted on the train all the way down, all the way back up and a fair amount in between. I found out she is my ex house twin (my last lovely house sounds like it is pretty much the same layout as her house, which makes me slightly jealous as I miss my old house a little bit) amongst other things.

We all met down there at the Royal Festival Hall which I'd never been to before. Its a great place just to go and meet up as a group. There are plenty of chairs and tables around and no one seemed to bat an eyelid at a group of women sitting around knitting and chatting.

We did go on a little diversion along the way into Loop. I ended up with two skeins of Malabrigio sock:

 

 

 

Loop

 

Loop

All in all it was a lovely day and I hope we get to do it again sometime soon (and not just for the yarn shopping).

I started a new project because I had nothing on the go which I could knit without having to concentrate too closely. Hopefully I'll have more of that to show later on this week. 

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Frogging my ombre blanket

I think my Ombre Acrylic blanket is getting frogged. I'm about half way through the second section at the moment.

Unfortunately knitting it with 8mm needles is hurting my hands. When my thumbs started to go numb I decided it probably wasn't doing me any good. So I am frogging it and going back to my original idea of a crochet blanket with this yarn.

I still love the fabric this pattern makes, but I think if I try it again I'll make it out of 4 ply which will mean I can use a much smaller needle size, either 5 or 6mm. I've knit quite comfortably on 5mm before so I shouldn't have a problem with it (I hope).

I hate frogging, its so depressing, but I am being strict with myself because I know if I don't frog it then it will end up in the big WIP pile in the corner of the living room and I'll never doing anything with it again. It will make me feel guilty and I'd always feel like I couldn't use up the rest of the yarn because "one day I'll finish that blanket."

In the meantime whilst I came to this decision I've been practising my crochet skills on a mini project. Hopefully I may have that finished and ready to show you by tomorrow.

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FO - Swap knits

I've finished my knitted item for the Alice in Wonderland swap:

My swap partner likes purple and wristwarmers so these should be just right for her. I'm supposed to be the March Hare, so a yarn in the colourway Jam Session seemed perfect for someone who is  at a perpetual tea party. The little leaf buttons from my Crafty Creatives box seemed perfect to finish them off, straight from a woodland scene.

I've ordered a few more items for the swap over the weekend, one of which is some purple yarn called March Hare, I couldn't get better than that for the box.

I love doing swaps and finding the right things for people. Sometimes its quite difficult, I've seen people who have not given much information and say they are happy with anything go off and complain in other groups that what they received wasn't good enough.

Its hard for knitters of different ability and experience to swap unless everyone accepts that a handmade item is always going to have had a certain amount of time, effort and care put into it and so even if the knitting isn't as good as your own, its still something someone has worked hard over.

My knitting is certainly not as good as some of the things I've seen people knit on Ravelry, but, as I am not a quick knitter, I would hope that anyone receiving a hand knit off me would realise its taken me a lot of time and effort to make. Sadly that's not always been the case but hopefully this time my swap partner will appreciate and love the things I have made her.

Today I am...

Knitting some wrist warmers in Posh Yarn Bonnie Aran in the colourway Jam session:

Knitting my Ombre Acrylic Blanket, which is going to take awhile as knitting on 8mm needles hurts my hands:

Re reading one of my Chalet School books, perfect comfort reading:

Trying to figure out how to use my new (secondhand) camera, its a "proper" camera, a DSLR and I'm finding it very confusing:

Enjoying the snow we still have around the house:

Winding my Yard Yard yarn I got the other day one skein at a time:

Listening to Oomph and letting the Husbeast get on with putting plasterboard up in the utility room without interfering too much....

Someday that room is going to look nice, hopefully someday soon!

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Special little things

Today I have been appreciating:

• The way the ice makes cobwebs really obvious so I can appreciate their beauty 

• Quick meetings which are less noisy than I expected

• My early finish on a Wednesday so that I can spend the afternoon knitting

• Curling up watching my tortoise

• Eating some sugar free chocolate

• DK weight yarn and 8mm needles for a quick, uncomplicated knit

Last night I started knitting some of this:

Whilst I wait for some more purple Push Yarn Martha Sock so I can finish my 15 stitch blanket.

What are your favourite little things which turn an average day into a special day?

Small skein society

Natalie over at The Yarn Yard has started the small skein society. I signed up before the New Year and received my first parcel yesterday. I signed up for the two skein and choconastick option. This yarn club is great for those who like to knit socks or mitts or who want yarn suitable for colourwork.

I went for the two skein option because at some point soon I really must start knitting socks again. Both the Husbeast and my father keep asking me for pairs and I would really like some more myself.

The first delivery was fantastic as it contained two skeins which have so many of my favourite colours in them and three of the choconasticks.

Natalie has hand dyed these skeins with brushes in small sections to try to ensure there is no pooling if we do use them for socks or mitts, where you can get pooling on the heels or thumbs if you are working short rows.

I would have liked to have included a picture of the whole parcel, you know with the chocolate... But that disappeared within two minutes of me opening it! To be fair I did actually include the chocolate option because I thought the Husbeast might be happy about yarn appearing every month if it had chocolate inside for him.

Not that he is ever disapproving about my yarn stash luckily, he's very good to me, but still a little bribery goes a long way.

Apparently the chocolate was rose flavoured and made a hot chocolate which tasted of Turkish delight. He did at least let me have a few of the marshmallows which came with it.

So here is a photo of the first delivery of yarn in all its rose coloured glory:

However this wasn't the actual point of the post. I've mostly written it because I wanted to praise Natalie at the Yarn Yard for her fantastic customer service.

When I signed up she double checked my address because I'd moved since the last time she sent anything to me and she wanted to make sure she had the right address. She then offered from the second parcel onwards to wind the skeins into cakes for anyone who wanted it. Well considering I have pain in my right shoulder most days from an old accident, and winding yarn exacerbates it, I think I answered her before she'd even finished typing the request.

She then gave me the option to have it in one cake or two and just generally was so helpful and accommodating I wanted to just say a public thank you. Being a knitter who mostly uses yarn from UK indie dyers has spoilt me. If I order it its generally here within a couple of days, the dyers are easily accessible on Ravelry to answer any questions and they are so helpful. Unfortunately I now get grumpy with other shops both online and bricks and mortar if they don't live up to the high standards set by the yarn shops.

If you want to sign up to the Small Skein Society you can do so here.

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New yarn - again....

Oh yes I have more new yarn. This is the second batch of the Stylecraft Special DK to go alongside the yarn I bought here, and this one came from Wool Warehouse. Their delivery was just as quick as Deramores, there was just a limit to how much yarn I could carry home from work in one day.

This is the yarn all together, giving the below combination of colours:

Ignore the weird blueish tinge to this I'm not sure quite what was going on with the camera at this point.

There are more balls of white than the greys and black because some of the white is to go with the colours to make a Pop blanket.

As for the greys etc I may have changed my mind about those. I was going to make a Granny stripe blanket, but then I realised this could be a great colour combination to make the Ombre alpaca blanket I've had my eye on for awhile (although obviously alpaca-less).

It's supposed to be knit on 8mm needles, which should theoretically make for a quick knit but in real life I find thicker needles more awkward to knit with, so I am a bit concerned it could end up being a slow and awkward knit especially as there are a lot of slipped stitches in it so I wouldn't settle into a rhythm like I have done with my 15 stitch blanket.

I may possibly at the end have enough yarn left for a Granny stripe cushion cover which would at least pacify my craving to do some crochet.

Which would you make? A crochet Granny stripe blanket, or a kitted Ombre blanket?

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Ravelry - Swap package

As I've mentioned I belong to the Posh Knitters forum on Ravelry and we've been having a swap to cheer us up after Christmas. My wonder swap package arrived today and here it is:

(Please excuse the very poor photos I had rain streaming  down my glasses but I was so excited by it I wanted to open it there and then and needed to photograph the packaging.)

This is from someone who stalked me very well because I nearly squealed with excitement when I picked up the jiffy bag and found my all time favourite cartoon character Snoopy on the front:

I may have wandered around the house for a few minutes sorting this out after coming home from work, chanting in my head "Snoopy, Snoopy, Snoopy". Maybe I shouldn't admit that....

Then inside were beautifully wrapped parcels:

 

 Which revealed this little lot:

 

Which was a lovely card, a skein of blue Brooks Farm Yarn, which I haven't tried before as its from Texas. I love trying new yarn so this is a great swap. The white box contains tortoise shaped chocolates, there's also tortoise stitch markers, a tortoise charm,pencils with tortoises on them, some winter spice tea and a tortoise tape measure. The tape measure and some of the chocolates are shown better below:

In case you don't understand why so much tortoise stuff was in there meet Speedbump:

 She is a bit bigger than this now but not much. She is always my profile picture on Ravelry so my love of tortoises is well known. My love of Snoopy is not so well known so my lovely swap partner stalked me and chose well. Thank you Sue.

Always nice to have a surprise when you get home from work on a dull, wet day.

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New yarn

New yarn arrived today and lots of it!

We were having a chat on the Posh Knitters forum over on Ravelry about crochet. The term Posh by the way doesn't refer to us (I am not in any way posh) but to our love of Posh Yarn. We were discussing some of the lovely crochet blankets over on the Attic 24 blog. I love reading Lucy's blog its always full of lovely colourful projects which brighten up my day.

On Ravelry we found quite a few people had recommended the Stylecraft Special DK for crocheting some of Lucy's designs. I'm not a massive fan of acrylic but they said this was soft and not too hard on the hands, so at £1.99 per 100g I decided to give it a go.

I wanted to make a couple of blankets and whilst I might be a bit of a yarn snob at times acrylic is good for blankets because its cheaper to buy in the large quantities needed for a blanket, and its machine washable. This is a serious plus in our house (how do you toilet train a tortoise?).

So I bought two lots of Stylecraft and my first lot arrived from Deramores today:

It is very colourful, in fact it is very not me. And despite the fact I bought it following a conversation about crochet, its actually destined to be knitted into a Pop blanket. Its DK and not worsted but I've never let little things like gauge and yarn thickness bother me before.

I am still intending on crocheting a blanket from Attic 24 and that's the yarn I'm waiting for in my second parcel. Not quite so colourful but will go better in the living room where I intend on it living.

I don't think I've ever bought so much yarn in one go before gulp lets hope this doesn't become a habit!

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Knitting - Simple scarf

The Husbeast can actually knit. Well he can let me cast on, knit in garter stitch, pass to me whenever he makes a mistake and let me bind off, but still considering its years since I stepped in a kayak (his hobby) I appreciate the effort on his part.

He doesn't really wear much that I can knit for him. I have knit him a pair of socks he wears loads in the winter and has requested more pairs, but I lost my sock needles for ages (I only have one pair to try to discourage my WIP pile from growing any bigger), so there are no socks on my list for him any time soon.

He doesn't wear hats particularly and the one hat I knit him was way to big, went on the frog pile and "disappeared".

So when he asked me to knit him a scarf over Christmas I decided it was time I made him something. Especially as he asked for it in Moss Stitch which is apparently his favourite stitch pattern. Which basically means he's been paying attention which makes me love him all the more.

So I cast on 60 stitches on 4.0mm needles in Posh Yarn Martha Sock and knit in moss stitch until I ran out of yarn which took forever (or at least that's what it felt like). It was the perfect project for over Christmas though. I could knit it without concentrating too much over Christmas when the family was round. Then after they'd gone it was also perfect to knit whilst watching the Husbeast's Christmas present to me, the last season of House MD which we love.

So here is the simple scarf:

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