Wipdown No. 1

I'm off to a good start on my WipDown. Wip No. 1 complete!
I'm calling this my Myrtle Leaf Shawl (abridged) as I made it shorter and left out the border.
Embarrassingly, I started this on February 12 this year. For shame, for shame.



It measures 52" long and 15" wide. Plenty long for a scarf I think!
Here's a close-up of the stitch pattern:



Isn't it pretty? I know it's hard to see on the blocking board, I promise to take some nicer action shots once it's dry.
Blocking this took ages, almost an hour. It's definitely worth it, though, lace seems to emerge from a woolly cocoon when you stretch the living daylights out of it and pin it. Thank goodness for my lace blocking kit!

I love it. I'm really pleased I went back to it and finished it. Now the dilemma, do I keep it, or gift it?

Pattern: Myrtle Leaf Shawl from Victorian Lace Today (Ravlink)
Yarn: Unknown Laceweight yarn that hubby bought me in Maria's Garn in Stockholm, Sweden in May 2009. I think there was 100g in the skein, and I've about 18-20g left. I'm pretty sure it's a wool/mohair mix, it certainly feels like it.
Needles: 3.75mm KnitPicks Options

For my next trick, I shall attempt to complete the Summit Shawl. Can I do it? (Bob the Builder voice required here) YES, I CAN! (hopefully)

Good knitting!

Wip-Down

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa brought what you wanted. I did very well, I think. I got the anniversary edition of EZs Almanac, the EZ Knitting Glossary DVD, Knitting Pattern- a-day calendar for 2011, Epic Mickey on the Wii, Lord Alan Sugar's autobiography and Stephen Frys latest autobiography installment. A fantastic haul.
John loves his jumper and Alice was thrilled with her Santa goodies and her Snowball Scarf.

We had a great day yesterday. My brother surprised Mam & Dad and came up yesterday morning for a few days. It was lovely to have the whole family round the table for dinner.
I also brought Alice to midnight mass on Christmas Eve for the first time this year, just so she could see Grandad and his choir for their biggest performance of the year. It was beautiful.

Last night, while I was digesting my enormous dinner beautifully cooked by hubby, I got to thinking. Wouldn't it be great if I could finish all my wips and have a clean knitty slate to start 2011 with? I mentioned this on Twitter and a few others agreed. So, it looks like there's going to be a group effort to clear the decks for the New Year.
I cast on a pair of Spiral Boot Socks on Christmas Eve, here's my progress so far:



These are being done toe-up so I can try as I go, as I need to make them wider in the leg for my chubby stumps.
I'm not going to include these in the wip-down ( I know, making excuses straight away) as they are new & shiny & I know I'm going to want to knit them.

So, I have 3 projects to get done. My Myrtle Leaf lace shawl, my Summit Shawl and a cardigan for Alice.
Here's the first one, the Myrtle Leaf Shawl. This has hibernated since the Ravelympics (gasp) as I lost the will to continue on the border. I got stuck. I hadn't made it the recommended length in the pattern as I was running out of yarn, so I didn't know how to turn the corners on the border. With the result that it languished.
Looking at it this morning, I think I can get away without the border. What do you think?



The border is on the right. It looks fine without it, doesn't it? I'm going to rip out the border and continue on until I run out of yarn. It's going to be a scarf instead of a shawl. Still looks good though, huh?

Right, I have 5 days do finish 3 wips. Can I do it? The clock is ticking....

Good knitting!

Drifting

I feel like I'm drifting at the moment, knitty wise. I'm doing lots, finishing little. Do you ever feel like that?
I took out my not inconsiderable pile of wips this evening for further inspection.

Exhibit 1:



My Seamless Colourwork Yoke Sweater.
According to Ravelry I started this in November 2009. *gasp* That's shocking. I should be ashamed of myself. I know I haven't been super motivated to knit it because I deliberately made it too small hoping to lose enough weight to fit into it, and also because I'm scared of the colourwork. Not as scared as I used to be, since I made my Norwegian Snail Mittens, but still pretty scared.

Exhibit 2:



My Myrtle Leaf Shawl. According to Ravelry I started this one in February. Funnily enough, I had entered this into a Ravelympics event! Ha. Delusional. I must have been on medication.

Exhibit 3:



Summit Shawl. According to Ravelry I started this one in April, so not so bad. Still bad, but not in the crime area yet. I remember dashing out to This is Knit to buy Malabrigo Lace to make this one, full sure I'd have it knit while on holidays with Mam & Dad for a week over Easter. Yeah.


Exhibit 4:



This one is really only guilty of a minor infraction. I did only start these last month, and have been knitting them at least once a week at knit night. But, I would love to finish them in time for Alice to wear for the World Cup final on Sunday as The Netherlands are through! I'll be wearing my orange socks for sure.

Of course I am plodding away steadily with Dads sooper seekrit vest. I have one more pattern repeat before I'm at the bottom of the armholes & v neck, which is where it all gets interesting. Maybe that's why I think I'm getting nowhere, because the project I am progressing on is one I can't talk about?

So, cast your votes now. Which project do you think I should finish first. "The Sweater of Ages", "The Shawl of No Border" or "The Shawl with no Summit"? Cast your votes now, members of the jury. Whichever gets douze points (Eurovision reference there) will be the one I attempt to finish first.

In delivery news, I placed an order from Ravelry the other day. I have to say, their delivery is absolutely brilliant. I think it took 3 or 4 days to wing its way to Ireland. Why can't everything else I order from the States come that quick?
Alas, it was not to be a happy delivery.
I ordered this:



I really loved the look of this shirt. I was thinking I'd rock Knit Nation wearing this and my Daily Dose of Fiber shirt. But, sadface, it doesn't fit. No ones fault but my own. Although, it is the same size as my other tshirt. Why cant shirts have the one sizing? Grr.
Anyway, I'm now left with the shirt that does not fit. I don't really want to send it back, between postage etc it'd be a waste of money. Plus, it's not Ravelry's fault it doesn't fit.
I think it shall just be consigned to the pile of clothes that do not fit. Maybe I can put it in the bag with my unfinished "Sweater of Ages?

BUT, to make up for the sad tshirt, I did get a happy sheepy project bag too.



Cute! This shall be my sock project bag. I love it.

Ooh, The Yarn Room have a sale starting this Saturday. I've never been to the shop, so I figure now is the time. I've asked Mam & Dad if I can go round to them on Sunday instead and I'm off on a road trip. They have Icelandic Unspun, baby! I've been dying to try this stuff for ages. I really hope it's included in the sale :)
So, road trip! I can't wait. I'm hoping to meet up with a few other knitters, especially NicKnits. It's going to be fun.

Good knitting!

Distraction Techniques

Some people are great at distracting themselves, making themselves think about something other than what is bothering them; making themselves calmer, more focused.
Not me.
I'm a worrier, pure & simple. I always imagine the worst possible outcome to any situation, & get myself tied up in knots about it. Sleep is always the first thing to go. I lie awake imagining all the possibilities, and all I end up with are bags under my eyes and a new set of worries.
Dad went in to hospital today & is having his operation tomorrow.
My brother was meant to bring him in today & stay with Mam while he's in, so I can take time off when he comes out to mind them.
I was literally outside my office door this morning (an hours drive from home) when I got a text message from dickface asking me to bring Dad in coz he "slept it out" & was still in Limerick (approx 2 hr drive away). What else could I do, but turn the car around & drive back home again. Poor Dad was all apologies, telling me to leave him at the hospital door & go in to work. As if it was his fault!
I'm so mad with my brother. Guess what time he finally arrived up at? 4pm. Yep. 4pm. That's some lie in! And an apology? You must be joking. I should have known that a leopard never changes his spots, once a selfish prick always a selfish prick.

Anyway, it's not about him, it's about Mam & Dad. Please God he'll get through the operation tomorrow. If you're of the praying sort, a few prayers tomorrow would be greatly appreciated.

I may be absent from the blog for the next while, depending on how things go, but I'll try my best to post. It actually helps me to think about something more cheerful. Knitting always cheers me up. :)

Speaking of knitting, let's get to it, shall we?

I finally managed to get some work done on my Myrtle Leaf Shawl. A shawl that has been so long on the needles now that it's almost antique! This was actually a Ravelympics project! *shame*

I did 30 repeats of the body instead of 40 as I didn't think Iwas going to have enough yarn for the border too. This is how much I currently have left:

It's not a whole heap, but I think I might just manage the border.
The body looks like this (unblocked):

I know it will grow much more when blocked, so I'm happy enough with the length.

Here's a close up of the border:

It doesn't look like much, does it? Lace is a demon to photograph when in progress. The only thing I'm worried about is how will I know when to start the corner segment of the shawl, because it's 10 repeats less. The pattern says to work 57 repeats of the border chart before working the first corner. So, should I work 47 as my body is 10 repeats less? The thing is, the border chart is an 8 row repeat & the body chart is a 13 row repeat, so the rows don't match up. I'm worried I'm going to make a mess of this border which would be really upsetting after all the work I've put into this shawl so far.

Dad's Sailor socks are flying along:

The beauty of sitting in hospitals for hours waiting on doctors. I should definitely have these finished by the time Dad is discharged hopefully in 1-2 weeks.

So that's all my news for now. Just say a prayer or cross your fingers, or think good thoughts for me tomorrow (Thurs May 6) that Dad will get through the surgery ok.

Good knitting!

Blogful of nothing

Right. Here goes. This blog post is a post full of nothingness really. It's a vain attempt to avoid a stinging reply to a nutjob on Ravelry who has got me all riled up. What I really want to post is:

F*** you mad person on Ravelry, I am not going to respond to your nutjobness and lower myself to reply to you, so I use this, my personal blog space, to say F*** you. Might I suggest using Google to discover ways that you can F*** yourself?

Ahhh thats better. Now onto more suitable blog fodder:

The seamless colourwork yoke sweater progresses:

I know it's not much to look at, stocking stitch is like that I guess. This here is 16" of stocking stitch in the round with two lots of short rows built in to avoid riding up of sweaterness over my ample belly.


Anyhoo, I have a dilemma. I have 3 balls of my main colour grey left:

There are allegedly 125yds in a ball. Although the ball band doesn't give yardage. Anyway, I have 3 and a small bit balls left. I'd like to make the body an inch longer, and I've the sleeves to do yet. I will need a small amount for the colourwork yoke too. Will I have enough? I've decided to do the sleeves first and then see how much I have left. If I do run out, I hope the dye lots aren't too different, and I can maybe order some more and it'll fit into the yoke part. Hopefully.


This sock is on a tight rope:

My Bex socks. I haven't knit these since, well I'm not sure, but it must be at least 4 or 5 weeks. And I'm looking at them now and thinking, meh, I'm not sure I love you anymore. It's very sad. Like breaking up with a boyfriend (so I believe, I never broke up with anyone, they always broke up with me). What line should I use? "It's not you, it's me", or "the yarn choice came between us"? or "maybe we can hook up again some other time"?


Whatever way I say it, I think these may dive into the frog pond to re-emerge another time.
Speaking of frog ponds, I'd love to find a little frog china thingy to use in my pictures when I frog stuff. Other bloggers have adorable little froggies for thier pictures. I wants one.

So my failed Ravelympics project, the Myrtle Leaf Stole continues:

I'm at 26 out of 40 repeats with a border to knit on afterwards.
Problem? Same as above, actually, I'm not sure I'll have enough yarn!
I have this much left:

It's going to be close. And if I do run out, I'm screwed coz I can't get any more. Fingers crossed I'll have enough! I wonder should I do a few less repeats just in case? Although knowing my luck, if I do that, I'll end up with loads left and I'll be kicking myself that I didn't do the full no. of repeats.

Now onto some advice seeking. I've a design in me dying to break free. It all began when I saw the Norwegian's trousers at the curling event in the Winter Olympics:

I lurved these trousers. I said to hubby, I must knit something from these. The all too obvious pattern was something harlequin in multiple colours, but I have always wanted to design a pair of socks, so I decided to use them as inspiration instead.
Alas, I have fallen om my sword. I have been a whole week trying to get this picture to turn into a swatch:

What I want is a diamond within a diamond, either horizontal as above, or vertical with either a ktbl or single cable dividing the pattern repeat. Only trouble is, I can't do it! I've tried loads of different methods, including making the stitch repeat larger but to no avail. I think this may end up in the design graveyard. What a shame as it was my first ever knitty idea.

So the weekend is over and tomorrow brings another shitty work week ahead.
Still, the week after next is St. Patricks day, and I'm tagging on to the day off so I'll have the Wendesday, Thursday & Friday off. Woot!
Good knitting!

Medal Powah

I haz the colourwork and Olympic knitting skillz!

I've finished the mittens! I'm soo happy to have completed my first Ravelympics project.

They're also my first stranded colourwork project and I'm really pleased with them. No puckering and the floats are nice and even at the back, my fingers don't catch in them at all!

The front:

The back:

The mittens once washed and blocking:

I didn't know what to block them with, so I ended up using the legs of my sock blockers. Ingenuity.

You can really see how the yarn bloomed once washed, they look really hairy. I hope they don't get too hairy, that would really annoy me. I'd end up picking off the hairs all the time :)

Anyway, pattern details:

Pattern: Norwegian Snail Mittens by Adrian Bizilia, from The Knitters Book of Yarn. In fact, this pattern was the reason I bought the book.

Yarn: Garnstudio Drops Alpaca, about 3/4 of a skein each of the cream & pink, and only a smidge of the green.

Needles: 2.75mm dpns

It took me 3 tries to get these mittens to fit me, the pattern calls for 2mm needles, but the 2.75 is fine, nice and snug.

I can't wait to wear these on Monday for the cold drive to work! I love wearing mittens when driving, my hands are lovely and snug and protected from the cold steering wheel!

Overall I think these are a goody.

Plus, I've won two medals! I entered these into the Mittens Moguls and Nordic Colourwork Combined events.

I've also started on my lace entry, the Myrtle Leaf Shawl with Willow Border from Victorian Lace Today.

I must be mad, this sucker is HUGE.

My progress so far:

I tried to stretch it out a bit so you can almost make out the pattern:

It's ok, I think. I've done 19 out of 40 repeats on the body, but I've also to do a knitted on border too.

It's difficult enough, there's lace action on both sides of this one.

Hmm I don't think I'm going to cross the finish line with this one. There's only 8 days left to go. I'm sleep deprived as it is!

I wonder should I abandon it in favour of a baby pattern that I know I'd finish?

Maybe I will. I'd love to make a Baby Bog Jacket...

Once again though, I think I am smokin'!

Hats Off

First things first, here's a picture of the Swallowtail finished and off the blocking board:

Apologies for the shockingly bad photo, but it has been really foggy here all weekend, and there is no light at all. The only way I could figure to get the lace to show was to peg it to out white radiator! Hopefully you get the idea.

Here's a close up of the beads:

They really did turn out lovely and sparkly.

I'm going to my nieces joint 18th & 21st birthday parties next Friday so I think I shall debut this to all the family and bask in their collective oohs and aahs. :)

Speaking of bad photos, I really should get some tips from John about how to take better photos. Other peoples blogs have some great photography.

In the meantime, I whipped this up during the week:

Pattern: Koolhaas Hat by Jared Flood

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes worsted, about 1.5 skeins

Needles: 4 & 5mm Knit Picks Options using a 120cm cable and Magic Loop

(See what I mean about bad photos?)

What a great pattern, really easy to do. Knit up like a dream. Only thing is it's a bit too big. I made the smaller of the two sizes in the pattern, but I think it would have fit better with just 4 repeats of the chart than 5. Ah well, at least my ears will be warm! It's not quite as pink as the picture either, more purply pink. Nothing too drastic for wearing first thing in the morning!

I've started my second Lace and Cable Sock from the toe up. Meh. I think this one might be a while on the needles, I'm looking around desperately for anything else to knit other than it.

I spent last night drooling over Victorian Lace Today, especially the Myrtle Leaf Shawl. *sigh*

I really have been bitten by the lace bug! Who would have thunk?

I have the perfect yarn for it too, some mystery laceweight that John got me in Marias Garn in Stockholm last year. I've no idea what it is, there's no tag on the skein. I think it may have some mohair in it.

I didn't even know how many yards there were, so I did some hinky maths last night in order to figure it out.

There are 12" in a foot, 3 feet in a yard. I reckoned 10 yards would be sufficient to get an accurate measurement, so I wrapped the yarn around a foot ruler 30 times and then weighed it. It weighed 1 gram. Therefore, using my bat powers of mathematics (calculator) I reckon there's approx 1050 yards in the skein.

Bearing in mind that my scales is probably not the most accurate, I knocked off 50 yards for safety. And, the Myrtle Leaf Shawl requires 950 yards. It's fate, I tells ya!

So, I think I may swatch for it in preparation for the Ravelympics. Swatching is ok before the events, right?

Good knitting!