You know you're addicted to knitting when...

* You find yourself replacing all your store-bought plastic and metal needles for expensive bamboo or something similarly damaging to your bank account. It's an investment, right?
* You rarely buy knitwear because you know you could make it yourself at home. Even if you never actually get around to it.
* There are yarn or yarn-related items in almost every room of the house. Including the bathroom.
* You find that your 9 to 5 job really cuts into your knitting time (and am slightly resentful).
* Ravelry is not just a website, it's a way of life. If you're offline for more than a few days you get withdrawal symptoms
* Your sofa and carpet suffer much more from yarn scraps than pet hair - the cat just can't compete!
* You've contemplated knitting whilst stuck in a traffic jam, and tried to calculate if you could finish a row before the traffic lights change.
* You've turned up for work in at least one item you've knitted. Extra points for more than one item, and bonus points if it's underwear.
* You find yourself sometimes wishing you lived in a cold climate e.g. Scandinavia, so you have an excuse to knit and wear even more items.
* You've taken at least one work-in-progress to a beach holiday, and then sweltered under the weight of it.

Gobs of colour

The Coventry Knit Wits had another destash night last night and I snaffled this lot pronto - it didn't even touch the table!





10 skeins of Berroco Poppy - a linen mix with gobs of coloured fluff in it, and 1 ball of Wendy Dolce Mia - pink and fluffy, to replace the pink and fluffy fingerless gloves I seem to have lost half of.

Because I need more yarn, of course!

Kudos to Debbie for standing up to the bloke who was insisting he wanted to buy the entire table a drink - I don't think he realised that there were twelve of us and that we might all potentially demand pints of brandy!

Oh, and thanks to Monique's suggestion (what to do with a too-small amount of yarn) I am wearing my shrug today - and it's surprisingly good! I've never been a fan of clothing that doesn't stay put and falls off shoulders etc but it's holding up very well! :)

Banish the blues!

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Originally uploaded by steel breeze

Decided if anything would cheer me up, and get my mojo back, that it would be casting on in a riot of colours. This is Colinette Iona, and I'm making it in intarsia. Because I can!

Edit to add: Oh, the pattern is called Armelle, it is a round-neck cardigan or jumper. Not sure which I will make yet, I have enough yarn for either.

Almost FO, definitely UGH!

Front and back views of Rowan Kimi. Made the largest size, but it's very oversized and far too heavy to ever wear. It'll get unpicked and converted into a simple V-neck top methinks - at least that will be something I can wear!

FO: Simple shrug

Front and back views of a simple shrug made with Patons Parade. Love the stripes on the back of this.

FO: Square neck top

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Originally uploaded by steel breeze

Constructed using Knitware, and using the tight ease and the shaped waist options. Just had enough yarn!

FO: Black lurex top

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Originally uploaded by steel breeze

Looks a lot better with cut and sewn armholes

Feh and meh

Ravelry are holding "Ravelympics", to coincide with the winter olympics in Vancouver. We have to cast on during the opening ceremony, and (hopefully) finish before the games are up. I made some logos for the team:









I like the Arnie (Aka Y-Arnie!) and skull ones the best. They get reduced down to 100 pixels square :)

Finished modifying the black lurex top and it came out quite well, although if I'd started from scratch I would have probably made the armholes a little less deep. Ah well. Turned the heel on the first mini-mochi sock, but need to stop and check it fits my foot, I suspect it is too short. Started a square-necked top in some multi-coloured acrylic I bought from Riverside for no particular reason. Looks like it will fit ok but came out longer than Knitware said it should, so am now worrying there'll not be enough yarn for the sleeves.

Bit fed up with it all, ATM. Dunno if it's the weather, or a trip to Brum to spend M&S vouchers yesterday. I got nothing but a snarky remark from the Cog, regarding a mac I liked - he was in a funk all day over some work stuff and brought us both down. Lost my crafting mojo at the moment - all I want to do is curl up in front of the telly and become a hermit! Sob!

Current mood: sad

Patience is a virtue...

...and believe me, it's a virtue I'm running low on this week. And I don't have a lot to start with, as a rule.

I'm having a rather irritating week, which is some feat, it only being midday Wednesday!

I had to step in and close a discussion on a group I moderate, because I got the distinct impression that neither party would stand down and, well, the tone was getting a little dark. Don't get me wrong, I love a good debate, and I have no problem with that taking place in the right forum, and in a polite and friendly manner (ie scattered with smileys and humour). But I don't like to see regulars sparring and setting a bad example for the newbies, especially when the matter in question would never get resolved to either person's satisfaction anyway and really wasn't worth getting worked up about!

Last night I decided to take the overlocker to the black lurex top I made before Christmas. The plan was to use woolly nylon and make a nice, neat, wrapped edge to enclose the poor chopped knitting. Two hours later, and not only am I quietly furious, but I've swapped back to the plain pale blue cotton I got with the overlocker, and done the best I can. I was hoping to use the overlocked edge as the finished edge, but there's not much hope of that now, it looks like somebody chewed it with a sewing machine. I think I have enough yarn left for some enclosed bands, anyhow. Never mind.

(Paragraph removed regarding non-paying knitter - person has FINALLY paid up. Would love to say "it was a pleasure doing business" with her, but it really, really, wasn't.)

These two matters have also made me loath to log into Ravelry this week, for the first time ever. I don't want to read my messages. Isn't that sad? I hate conflict and I hate having to yell at people. I don't like being the bad cop, but it seems sometimes people just don't want to freaking take the hint.

Oh, and whilst my blood is still running high. Mother Nature? Enough with the snow already. I have a knitting machine to send to Norway and you are NOT HELPING.

Ok, rant over. I needed that. Let us never speak of this again.

I am currently making a sock with Mini Mochi yarn. It's butter-soft and lovely to knit with, but it's a bit splitty. Hoping I've enough for two socks, but it's space-dyed so I'm not panicking too much about matching dye lots.

Oh, and I measured the chenille and cotton tops last night, and I must have made a serious error measuring the swatch, out of the four measurements, only one came out correctly! Grump! They are in the washing basket, hoping a wash will fix them - unlikely, but they are not froggable, so I figure I have nothing to lose by trying!

Free pattern: Flaps for fingerless gloves

Machine: Any 9mm chunky machine
Yarn: English DK weight
Tension: 5

Cast 15sts both beds in WY, knit zigzag row, knit a few rows circular whilst changing up to main tension.

Knit 2 rows (1 round) ravel cord. E-wrap cast on main bed then ribber bed. RC000. Knit at least 30 passes (add more here for longer flaps/hands). Dec 1st both ends, both beds, knit two passes. Repeat a further 3 times, until 9 stitches remain on each bed. Transfer all ribber stitches to main bed, K1 row T10, cast off loosely.

Sew onto gloves, add a button or snap-fastener if desired.

For the glove pattern, click here

FO: fingerless mitts with flap

Fingerless gloves, with a flap to turn them into mittens. Might put a button or press-stud on the flap yet. Ran out of yarn otherwise the flaps would have been bigger.

Glove pattern from Kangamooknits, I improvised the flap myself.


A garter stitch scarf in some fun fur I purchased in a red mist in last year's January sales. Yes, I know. It was an excellent brainless project when I went through a bit of a "can't be bothered" stage a few months back.

The other patterns I used this weekend: The Knitting Fiend glove generator, and Tubular socks

Figured since all my larger projects are turning to poo at the moment, I might as well cheer myself up with small, successful things.

UGH: Cotton slub top

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Originally uploaded by steel breeze

Came out too wide and it flares out a bit. Might take the overlocker to it.

UGH: Purple chenille top

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Originally uploaded by steel breeze

The colour is a nicer purple than this, it doesn't photograph well. Came out way too wide and quite a bit too short. Think I might take the overlocker to it - too fragile to unpick, alas.

FO: Bulky socks

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Originally uploaded by steel breeze

The colour's not quite as loud as this - made with some Robin Fascination yarn form the 1980s that I picked up on Ebay. Didn't quite read the tension instructions properly, so came out on the large side, but will probably wear these as boot socks so that works fine for me!

FO: MK gloves

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Originally uploaded by steel breeze

Trying out a pattern I found online. They came out a little large, so giving to the Cog, he needs them more than I do.

Gah!

Nearly finished sewing up Rowan Kimi, and it looks terrible! It's too big and too heavy. So another disaster.

Maybe I should stick to garter stitch scarves, for a quiet life?!

Current mood: grumpy

A series of unfortunate jumpers...

Well, I finally got Parallels Desktop and Windows XP onto the Mac, and then I purchased all three Knitware programs to put on it. I've made a couple of jumpers with it over the Christmas holiday (this was when I was still in demo mode) and I'm less than happy with them unfortunately.

Project #1 is a sleeveless black top with silver lurex - I was hoping I could wear it over the festive season. Whilst it fits just fine, I'm not at all happy with the sleeve heads, they sit rather strangely. Debating whether to unpick (my sewing up is legendarily difficult to unpick) or put it to the overlocker.

Project #2 is a purple chenille top with a scoop neck. The scoop neck came out so big there's no way the jumper will stay on me without rapidly becoming indecent. Not sure I dare unpick it, as the chenille will go bald/snap at a moment's notice - luckily I have plenty more of it.

Project #3 is a v-necked white cotton top with blue flashes. It came out OK, but it's a little on the short side - and it's definitely one I won't be able to unpick. It's mostly sewn up, I just need to weave in the ends.

#2 and #3 look rather wide and short - making a jumper to fit my bust size makes them rather loose everywhere else and presumes I have the shoulders of an American footballer (I don't).

So I'm hoping to put my own measurements into Knitware, and start making jumpers that will fit.

On the plus side, I finished knitting all the parts for Kimi last night - the pattern calls for two ties, made from 5 stitches of 1x1 rib, 65cm long. 104 rows each on the chunky knitting machine and about 20 minutes and they were done. The pattern is supposed to be put together, wrong sides together, using back stitch, so that the seams are a feature. It's an interesting design. I hope it doesn't look terrible when it's all put together.

I also ran up some new net curtains for the bedroom - the net was bought ages ago, when the Cog accidentally ripped the old ones - I suspect they had perished.