Pancakes and holidays

This is the view from Tenby beach last week - we had great weather . I may even have caught the sun slightly, which is bizarre for March.

This was our Shrove Tuesday tea:



Chicken and bacon in a cheese sauce, in a pancake, baked. With the more traditional pancake, lemon and sugared, for afters... Yeah, this one didn't quite flip properly, the Cog got the best one.



This is a tension swatch. I started knitting some sideways socks but there was no way they'd go around my feet, so I thought I'd better swatch:

FO: Duffer felted slippers

These are really quick and easy to make - "Duffers". If I made them again, I'd do a provisional cast on so that I could graft the seam that runs under the foot. I'd also be tempted to rethink the shaping - I think the decreases were supposed to be paired to make them look neater, but I couldn't make them match.

I'm also tempted to convert them to machine knitting, and put the increases/decreases at the end somehow. Might be too complicated though.

FO: Bath mitt

This is a free pattern on the ballband of the Sugar n'Cream. Once I stopped overestimating the thumb I was fine!

FO: Checkerboard dishcloth

See? I did do some knitting on holiday. Just not the stuff I should have been working on. This is in Lily Sugar n' cream yarn.

Coventry Knitathon

BBC photos

Picasa

Well, 667 knitters isn't a bad attempt. We knitted for 20 minutes and went for a different record (number of knitters knitting for 20 minutes), and raised £5200 on the night. I need to go around and collect my sponshorship money now!

I did a few more rows on the christening gown. Despite telling Jeanette how easy the pattern was, I kept mucking it up anyway! It's only a three row repeat, and two rows are the same thing offset by two stitches.

Threading up your knitting machine

Some sketches. Note that the Knitmaster has an extra loop AFTER the overhead wire


Threading a Brother knitting machine. The Knitmaster LK150 is also like this. Can anyone tell me about Toyota?


Threading a Knitmaster knitting machine. The Passap E6000 is also like this

In both cases, the tension discs have a little knob - you must ensure the yarn is beneath this knob so that it stays between the tension discs.

Spring startitis

It's happening again. Every spring I get this mad urge to cast on project after project - after about six hours, I'm already hankering after the next one. In the last few weeks I've cast on some socks, a christening gown, some slippers to be felted, and another MK jumper in chenille that rather has me stumped as to its construction at the moment. I can't stick to anything, I must cast on something new! Argh!

Off to the Coventry Knitathon on Thursday night at the Cathedral, hope to see you there!

Dingbattery

Spent quite some time trying to find a pair of 2.5mm straight knitting needles this weekend - for making the aforementioned disastrous socks. Turns out I never had a pair of straights in this size - I checked my inventory on Ravelry. I should have looked there first, duh! A quick scan of the Hobbycraft site saved me a wasted journey later - they only carry Pony needles, and they don't come in a 2.5mm size. Got some Clover bamboo ones on order from Get Knitted. I think I'll frog the sideways sock and have a go at Bakerloo (Rav link) instead, at least there are resizing instructions.

It's a pity Charlie Sheen has gone all crazypants. I thought he was really cute in that comedy film (it was suffixed Part Deux but the name escapes me). Ah, it's always the way! Perhaps he's heading for a nervous breakdown?

I had chicken and ham pancakes with cheese sauce last night, and then a pancake with fresh lemon and sugar for dessert. I love Shrove Tuesday! Chinese tonight, hurrah!

Sideways sigh days

So I thought I'd have a go at this sideways sock (PDF here) - I'm sure I actually printed it out months ago but I can't find it now. Well, I followed the pattern and started to graft the sock last night. Glad I didn't get too far - it is WAY too small for an adult leg. Rather disappointed, especially as I spent a lot of time on it (2.25mm needles - not for the faint of heart). So I either need to add a LOT of rows somewhere or I need to start again.

Meanwhile I finished creating a simple four-part Passap workshop for the guild's Yahoo group, and I've added cuffs to both sleeves and the back of the blue chenille jumper. I just need to have a think about if I want to add a cable pattern to the front of it now.

FO: machine knitted scrunchie

Video here. The video shows it being knitted on a standard machine, but this yarn was very slubby so I did it on an LK150.