Valentine Honey Badger Socks

Last minute belated birthday gift for a friend.  Hope she likes them!

This had better stop now

Where did that third one come from?......Mr Wilbur Woot.

Then there were two....

introducing Cedric Hoot-a-nanny!

A wol called Tufty.

Inspired by Bezzie's blog post. I remembered that I had this pattern by Ana Clerc in my Rav queue. And as I needed no encouragement to put off other stuff I should be getting on with (tries to look innocent and fails) I decided to whip a quick stocking filler for an Owl mad buddy.....and Tufty was born. He is almost beyond cute....now I want to make one for me!

Sometimes

Sometimes you just need a project that is mindless and kind of knits itself. Plain socks in a self patterning yarn works every time for me.

My plain sock pattern, knitted in Opal Van Gogh yarn - the colourway is Bedroom in Arles.

They are so pretty.

New hair needs a new hat!

 I decided to design and make myself a new hat to go with my new short bobbed haircut. I wanted something kind of 20's or Flapper style. 

Flower motif - took me all morning to work it out and knit it up - but I did have help from Lottie who killed the ironing board every time I took a piece through to steam block.

I am very pleased with my days work -now I think I might have to make mittens or gloves to match.

Getting there....slowly

 What have I been doing? Well I got a haircut - finally.

 Been making our Christmas cards.

Knit some mittens with some scraps of my hand spun yarn (the rest was woven into a scarf).

Still plugging on with my reading challenge I am on book 103.

Got stuff on the needles - three shawls and a pair of socks (TV knitting).

Got a mountain of alpaca to spin for a friend - now this is long term and really slow going as I am hand carding as I go because my drum carder doesn't like pure alpaca much. I also have a big bag of black alpaca to spin for me but that will not see the wheel for quite a while.

I also have two projects on my drop spindles - another slow go as I have periods where I love this way of spinning and then I put it in a box and forget it for a while.

The looms are empty right now. As I want to finish up some of my knitting projects before I weave again.

That's about it for blog fodder stuff. Dogs, cat, hubby, kid and spiders are all thriving and life is fairly jolly.

Whoops

Fell off the yarn diet wagon again!

Another one bites the dust

WIP's that is. Off the hook at last, my summer brights lap blankie. Perfect for a bit of extra warmth on the those chilly winter evenings plus the colours are just bursting full of bright summer zing.

It's just a basic granny stitch, edged with doubles.....simples.

Small crochet hexagon throw

My second crochet throw all done. The hexagons are much smaller than the first one - but perfect for the seat of my comfy chair in the bedroom.

Bits-n-bobs.

 New socks for M.

 A little bowl full of little balls of coloured woolly inspiration. More Frankensocks are on their way into the world.

Daddy Charlie Gull doing his Long John Silver impression on a wet roof this morning - I threw out some food and his other leg grew back very quickly. T'was a miracle.

This week has been funny, busy and kind of weird - M had a couple of days off which was nice and we had a bit of a social down in Hastings with some dog owning buddies - good conversation and good cakes! Been out walking quite a bit when the weather has permitted, got some reading done but apart from that life is puttering along quite nicely thank you.

Have a good weekend.

The redemption of the cardigan of Doom!

For 13 months I have been, sporadically, knitting on a cardigan that I have had serious doubts about. These doubts have been intensified by the experience of a knitting friend and by my own eyes.

When we were in Bath last September I purchased enough yarn to make this garment, when we got home I knitted the tension swatch, got gauge....this is important...my gauge was totally spot on. I looked at the schematic for my size and decided to knit two sizes bigger as I wanted a loose fit and I had the yarn to do it. I cast on. I know garment knitting with me is always a long haul, my early enthusiasm wanes very quickly as the rows get longer and the work gets heavier and bulkier, and this one also had the downside of moss stitch which I love the look of but hate knitting.

I worked on this fairly regularly, it was a slog as it is bottom up and knit in one piece (back and fronts all at once) but I slowly inched my way up the rib, the boring stocking stitch to the moss stitch and the cables. I divided it at the armholes and finished the back. I took it to my knitting group where one of my friends, who is a highly respected and experienced knitter, told she had had a bad experience with this pattern coming out very small! I worried. I laid it out on another cardi knitted from the same designer, in a size smaller, I worried a bit more. I put it down and walked away.

Every now and then I'd pick it up, knit a bit, look at it and sigh and debate froggin it...but it was such a lot of work. So I carried onward and upward. Then it got abandoned completely with a back, 2 fronts and a sleeve....I knew it was too small.

A couple of weeks back, I hauled it out of the norty corner...tried it on, sighed, debated and thought 'Fuck it, I'll finish it and see.' So I started sleeve two. I also was niggling now at the colour, it's a mauve/rose with grey/green flecks. I had wanted to make it in green or grey but the shop didn't have the yardage in stock in many colours and out of the ones they had Mike reckoned this colour was more 'me'. But colour preferences change or mine do...and now I was regretting my choice.

I slogged on. I moaned - to friends and family in real life and online. I finished the sleeve and the edging bands. I got my Mum to try it on....it fitted her! She is a size 12 up top at most I am an ample 16 and I was making a 48 which should be looooooooooooooose on me. I had forgone buttons (I never button up a cardi) and altered it a little to make it edge to edge but it was too small. Mum joked it could be her Xmas present,which was an option, but I would have been grumpy if she'd ever worn it, cos I had worked so hard and it had fucked up plus she can't wear wool (it makes her itch) and this was knit in pure wool which also made it a fairly pricey fuck up too.

Finally I knit the collar. That was it all the knitting finished. I was seriously downcast. I rarely make garments as, for me, they are such a commitment. I decided to wash and block it.

A wash , two rinses and a roll in a towel later and I was ready to lay it out.....it had grown. I was pessimistic it would shrink as it dried and it still wasn't ever going to be a loose fitting 48...but it did look bigger. It has taken two and half days to dry. This morning I tried it on. It is not the loose baggy cardi of my dreams but it does fit and fit nicely (I knit the sleeves long as I like them down my hands) even the sleeves are OK, actually they are too big really around the top but that is better than the original sausage like fit.

This stroke of wonder is not down to patterns author, it is down to the yarn (which is different to what the author used) but as I got gauge...perfect, spot on gauge, the yarn sub should not make a difference. I dread to ponder whether this miracle would have occurred if the proper yarn was used and I wonder if anyone else (other than my friend) has suffered the disappointment of so much effort and a badly fitting result. Of the other garments I have made where the patterns are by this author I have had no issues with sizing. Just this one - I looked at the picture of the uber skinny models in their baggy loose fit Flyingdale Cardigans and realised that to get that fit.....I better diet for the next two years!

P.S. Still not sure I like the colour though!

This weekend....

 I had a baking morning on Saturday. Above are cheese, paprika and oregano scones and below is a chocolate mocha layer cake. J had a cold and (he is never normally ill) and was down in the dumps so I thought some lovely home baked goodness would help....I  think it did....there was nothing left by yesterday evening.

 I finished my 'Hermione hearts Ron' (pattern on Rav). I modified the rib and the depth to suit how I like to wear hats. I used a hand spun alpaca silk blend in natural cream. It is still drying out from its wash because it is a dense knit.

I managed to complete three hats in my week of hat knitting - quite pleased with that.

Finally M and I stripped Lottie - who now looks all cute and puppimified. Took most of Sunday afternoon  but it was worth it....just need to tidy her paws and claws. Next week it will be time to wrangle the Scottie!

Been busy.

 As well as having a weeks holiday and celebrating our Silver Wedding Anniversary (which involved being out and being social virtually every day and most evenings last week) I was also productive.

The post below this one shows how many books I've managed in my '52 Book Challenge' and these photos show what is off the needles and wheel in the last few days.

Above is the wonderful Camden Cap by Woolly Wormhead - I love it. But the brim is a bugger! I used milk bottle plastic but it was a pig to put together. I need more hats this winter so already have another one under constructions- this week is 'Hat' week.

Below is one third of some spinning - merino/angora blend which I call 'Frosted Winter Berries' - I have a plan for this if the yardage works out OK.

 And lastly I zipped up a pair of new dog walking Frankenmitts as my other ones have now seen better days (dog leads are hard on gloves). I used two different types of lovely warm alpaca yarn so they should keep my paws nice and toasty.

Knitting for friends

A while back I made some Frankensocks for a friend. She loved them (phew) so much so she asked me to make her another pair, she said and I quote that my socks were 'heaven for feet', can't ask for a better accolade than that.

I don't mind knitting to order, I do it quite a lot. I have quite a few in a queue at the moment as well as a request to spin some alpaca fibre for a friend - enough with my own projects to keep my fingers busy.

The only downside to this is cost/price. Nine times out of ten I do it for the cost it takes to make, as how can I possibly price my time....per stitch, per hour, per inch? And no-one in their right mind would pay what it costs me in time to make these things. Sometimes I just gift my knitting cos I can and I feel it is good karma to do a random act of kindness now and then, I always hope the recipient will pass the karma on.

I have no problem with this conundrum - how can anyone who does not craft or knit even begin to understand the time a project takes that each and every little 'V' is one hand crafted stitch? They can't and if they could (by being a knitter themselves) then they wouldn't need me.

I have decided though to take on less knitting for others from next year as I want to have the time for my own knitting/crafting and I have some stuff that I want to work on to diversify my crafting.

I love the sock I have finished for my friend and number two is already on the needles. I hope they keep her feet cosy and warm through winter and it is a lovely feeling that my labour has given her something she likes and really seems to appreciate. My love of sock knitting never seems to abate.

Fire and earth affection

I love me a bandwagon so for my Olympic knitting I jumped on the 'Color Affection' shawl one. The pattern by Veera Valimaki is great and easy to follow. I rummaged the stash for fingering weight yarn, got me a 4mm circ and on Friday 3rd August I cast on, nine days later it is washed and blocking. I was concerned with the edges and read all sorts of stuff online and decided to go 50/50 with the yarn overs (just using them on the last two sections). It is big, soft and curvy and I love it. And considering it is all garter stitch it never became a boring knit and was the perfect companion to my all my velodrome/swimming/diving and giddy-up watching.

Hope 'heel' like them.

Or maybe a better title would be 'now with extra added heel appeal'.

Opal Van Gogh yarn, UK men's size 8 over 64 stitches on two 2.5mm circular needles.

The joy of an after thought heel

I love hand knitted socks (well duh) and they make perfect travel knitting. Using an after thought heel makes them an even better travel project because you just knit a tube with no shaping other than the toe.

 A pair of completed socks - all bar the heels. The green yarn shows where the heels will go.

 Use a circular needle to pick up the stitches either side of the green yarn - in this case there were 32 stitches each side.

 Remove the green yarn (the stitches are held safe on your needle cables). You can do this one stitch at a time using something like a large darning needle or.....

you can be an impatient little bunny like me and cut those fookers out! Remove all the green yarn scraps and then join your yarn and knit the live sock stitches back in the round. (Some stitches might be twisted so either right them or knit them  through the back of the loop.)

I tend to pick up 4 extra stitches (one for each needle tip) which helps close any gaps which might occur, so at the end of the first round I go from 64 stitches to 68 stitches.

I work my after thought heel in the same manner as I work the toe - doing one extra decrease round to loose those extra 4 stitches. I find for depth and width of the heel cup that decreasing from 32 stitches to 16 stitches per needle is just about right.

So simple, so neat and quick too.

A soggy interlude in Cumbria

 Over the last few day M and I have travelled 847 miles. We set out Thursday am and drove for around 7 hours to get to Cockermouth in Cumbria to go to Woolfest among other things. It rained as we came off the M6 toll and it didn't stop really.
Walking from our hotel to Woolfest is probably the wettest I have ever got in such a short space of time.....but it was worth it. I blew my wodge (been saving some pennies special like) and have posted piccies of my haul below.

We also took the opportunity to meet up with some friends in Cumbria  - one of these lovely ladies has a friend who breeds alpaca and she managed to get me a dark fleece for a price much cheaper than Woolfest - she also gave me her fawn fleece to prep and spin....I see a lot of spinning in my future.

We met up with some Border Terrier friends and their dogs at Grasmere- where I not only found the Herdy shop, mug above, which M got me as a little pressie but also one of my friends, who is a knitter, knit me a scarf. No-one knits for me! And I hate knitting scarfs so it really was an excellent gift. It is pretty and soft and come winter will get well worn!

Yarn purchases - all lace, 4 ply and sock weight.

 New spindle - had to try it out with the 100% Polwarth below - so well balanced it spins like a dream.

 More fibre goodness from DK FeltStudio UK. I bought a batt from her last time at Woolfest which was divine and I just could not resist these.

As we headed out of the Lake District via Windermere which looked very swollen - so much water everywhere. We headed south to the Midlands and our next overnight stop in Burton-on-Trent - this not only broke up our journey but put us in the area of Melton Mowbray where we met up with some more friends on Sunday (and some of them have Borders). We spent a lovely day with lovely people and their dogs finally heading off for the final leg of our journey home....we got in about about 9.00pm yesterday.

Spent a quiet one today....cast on a new project with some new yarn (bad Dobby) and cat napped and relaxed as much as possible. Still tired but an early night should solve that.

I've called this 'a labour of love'

 From this (a few weeks back) to.....

this. Finished, off the needles and now blocking - taking up our whole bed!

EZ 100th Anniversary Pi Shawl - Gull Wings Pattern by Mwaa Knit Obsession.
Knit using 5mm circs (ended up using 3 circular needles all at the same time) it took 7.5 ball of Rowan Pure Wool 4 ply in a light sage green colour.

I am pleased to have it finished - especially after fuffing it up a while back and having to rip out about 8 rows of 500+ stitches.