Lace woes, and some Dream Week photos

On closer inspection, the lace scarf pattern I was following is for a DK yarn. Alas, I picked the pattern based on the amount of yarn I had, and didn't check out the type it required...


So this is the finished "scarf" - the book in the photo is A5, to give you some idea of scale.


Finally complete - the Lizard Ridge afghan on our sofa. It took four nights to crochet the edging on, which has not been blocked. The cat loves it already!


Metropolitan Machine Knitting, Friday morning, before the hordes arrived.


Knitted wire necklace - three "i-cords" of 4 strands of wire, plaited together.


My Dream Week competition entry - I called it Murphy's bag, G nicknamed it Sideshow Bob. What a wit!

Just had tinned bear with ginger, fish sauce, dill, peppers, shallots and thai spiced potato wedges. I got to eat most of the bear, which looks a bit like corned beef, because G wasn't keen.

Current mood: working

Socks and sunburn

Finished the adult size pair of socks for Jo...

...and am cracking on with a toddler-sized blue one now. Finished the 10th repeat of the SP10 lace scarf (don't think it's long enough for a scarf, but maybe I'll just keep going 'til the yarn runs out). Finished the Colinette lasso top (just needs making up).

Sorted things out with my work colleague - she hadn't mentioned she was planning on paying for my time, too! Have offered to make her a pair from some leftover sock oddments, so the yarn will technically cost nothing, and I let her rummage through my oddments bag. She picked the multi-green and the hand-painted I got at the NEC, quite a nice contrast. Not decided yet if I will do two-row stripes, or alternate the colours for heel, toe and welt. Might ask her first, see what she thinks. She's a size 2 which will make the foot quite a bit shorter.

The weather's finally improved in the UK - been sitting out in the garden, and think I may have got a little sunburnt. Oops! G booked us a week in Zante for the end of Sept. yesterday so perhaps I should try and get my skin ready for the heat! Staying in a self-catering place overlooking the sea, looks fantastic! And we're going to Finland at the end of the month, too, so that should be good! I need a holiday!


Current mood: hot

Neon blanket

Mandy, look here, this is what happened to the last of that neon acrylic...


DK-weight yarns (mostly acrylic) knitted at T3, 1x1 rib on the Brother 260 gauge. All needles, 300 rows, two strips. I reckon this makes a decent blanket for a child (although I could add a third strip, I have to measure it first, see if I need more). I used up the last of the Emily, too. It's such a nice feel, that yarn, I had to share it with someone else! =)

Why is the left-most strip not as wide as the right one? Guess who forgot to set the ribber carriage lever from II to I after doing the cast on?! Shows you what a difference it makes!

I just put these together with my Hague linker 20 minutes ago.

Oh, and here's a post about the world's biggest stash. Thanks to Jean for the heads-up. G reluctantly admitted I hadn't got that much yarn in comparison. "But I bet you want that much, don't you?" he said. Um, no, actually, I don't. There's only so much yarn and equipment you can get into a spare bedroom, and I think I've pretty much filled mine, not to mention two more bags of cones in the attic. I reckon I've got more than I could knit up in the next 10 years, at least. The yarn always seems to go much further than I expect!


In other news, I won this on Ebay a fortnight ago, more yarn from Yarntree House. It's beautiful wool, in lovely autumnal shades, and I've swatched some this morning. I sense a long v-necked tunic with side slits coming on! :)

Knitting to do:

• Make two pairs of socks for Jo (started)
  
• Sew up charity tees and blankets made last weekend
  
• Make a Passap "neckline" border for both ends of the raspberry ripple blanket
  
• Add a strap to Murphy's bag
  
• Buy beans and finish the bean bag
  
• Tackle some of the UFOs
  

Not much chance this afternoon, though - we are off to buy G some decent trousers and shirts for work. Expecting much grousing about the poor fit of men's shirts (G has a thick neck).

Current mood: determined

Knitting With Intent...

Or knitting within tent - geddit? ....






Coventry Godiva Festival 2007, Greenspace tent. Click on the pics for bigger pictures.

Some pictures of the stand, before the hordes arrived. By Sunday I'd attached yarn to the knitted banner, and hung it from the tent pole. Saturday was v busy, with beautiful weather. Sunday was a lot quieter, with wet weather and lots of mud! Had a lot of interest in the group.

I kept getting "attacked" by money spiders on Saturday - probably about 15, I lost count. Had quite a few on Sunday, too. Forgot to put a lottery ticket on, waaay too tired on Saturday!

Thanks to everyone for helping out on the stand, lending us boards and the tailor's form, and lending us stuff to exhibit. A special thankyou to my other half "The Cog", not even a knitter, who helped me load and unload the car both days.

Everyone though the octpus was either a hat, or a bird-cage cover. :)

Made two charity tee tops, and two blankets - might seam the blankets together, as they are a little on the thin side. Especially as I forgot to adjust the tension on one and did it at T10 instead of T7. Doh!

Got lots of compliments on the knitwear - we could've sold Linda's jacket, Julie's scarf, the starfish and the dolphin several times over. It was quite amusing to watch the relief on the adult's faces when told the items being brandished by their children were not for sale!!

I'd've booked today off as holiday, but we're in the middle of a major job at work, so I didn't feel I could. It's nice to have some work to do for a change, even if it is borderline tedious!

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The lace knitting continues apace - I'm on the eighth or ninth repeat, I think. A couple of minor mistakes occurred - extra stitch at the end of a row - but couldn't figure out where the mistake was, so cheated.

Decided to make some lace on the Silver Reed. First attempt sunday night (bearing in mind I'd been knitting for two days already at this point!) I forgot to put the N1 cam on. As I was creating a diagonal shawl, this would mean the 24st pattern would continually start at the left edge, and never line up. Second attempt I completely ignored the arrows on the lace card, so again I don't think the pattern will line up. Ho hum. I think I need to start again!!

Current mood: determined

MK Challenge - Passap day 1

Well, after a bit of fiddling around, I got the Passap machine to do this:



Please ignore the rotten edge with dropped stitches and holes, also the display that reads "cast on 2", which it shouldn't. I haven't figured out how to make it do a fancy tuck stitch yet, but I will, never fear!

It took me several hours to get this far because first I used some awful yarn - brown wool plied with yellow nylon, an old cone from Uppinghams. Apart from the fact the colour combination is awful, the yellow started to bunch up in the tension mast and cause lots of problem. The second yarn I tried was some 3ply white - it's so old it keeps breaking, so poss. needs to go into the freezer, or down the tip. The third yarn I tried is a kind of cotton/viscose, it's a 4ply, this was too thick for the machine.

The yarn in the video is 1ply magenta acrylic, I think. I figure I'll carry on with the knitting until it's a blanket length, then just overlock the damaged edge and remove the holey bits.

I'm finding the Passap ok to work with, although it's a bit snippy about skipping ahead of anything it wants to do. For instance, I've got a cast on and some knitting going, but I'm not sure how I get it to start doing something in pattern without going through the cast on again. I shall figure it out though!

In typical British weather fashion, the weather's been lovely all weekend, although it's still chilly for July - you can't sit around with no sleeves, put it this way. I want to play with my new machine, but my body wants to get out into the sun! Think a trip to Cov in the new car this afternoon, might treat myself to some new undies.

Lace knitting now past the 7th repeat - finally I think my slow brain is getting the pattern. Glad I photocopied the chart though - the book'd be dog-eared by now!

Oh, and I knocked out another lurid neon charity tee yesterday, using the "pick up as you go" method. No sewing up to do, except for the ribbing. Not sure how I feel about the side seams, though, and it sure slows the second half down. I hung the bottom edge of the sleeves onto the sleeve edges and cast them off using the transfer tool - it worked ok actually!

G's playing Civilisation and is having a whale of a time killing off rival nationalities. The cad!


Current mood: determined

Another new machine...

But it's not a knitting machine - have a look here...


The Emily hat, plus rather sad pom-pom. I've still got some of this yarn left, it doesn't want to leave my stash, clearly!


Two pictures of the cashmere pashmina I started tonight. 200 needles (ie, all of them!) in 1x1 rib, T6/6 on the Silver Reed. Think the edge has come out a bit wibbly. Technical term. But I will probably be fringing it anyway, so it won't matter. Using three strands, changing every 2 rows, as being hand-dyed, the colours aren't quite the same. Should even it out.
Current mood: silly

Lace hassles

Not getting much knitting done this week...

The lace got as far as almost 7 repeats, but had to be frogged back to 5 because I'd made such a mess of it. My progress is like a jagged saw-tooth - three steps forward, two steps back. But I will prevail!

It's been a really hectic week and I've not had much knitting time, excepting two hours on Wednesday night, when I worked on "Murphy's bag". Still not sure I'm happy with the edging I'm doing - not the base colour (I picked navy, should have been black) or how quickly I started using the eyelash yarn. Seems this bag wants to cause as much trouble as possible!

Off out tonight for a works leaving do. Looking forward to more Wagamamas and some beers - it's G's turn to drive tonight. Best not get too hungover - my new machine is coming tomorrow, and I've got to figure out how to assemble it before I get to play with it! I'm not sure I really want to go out - every night this week we've been out, and Friday is usually "our" night in, but never mind - it's not every day a colleague leaves. Might well be out tomorrow at a classical concert, too, and on Sunday, celebrating no-smoking finally coming to England.

Current mood: apathetic

Gadget woman strikes again, and more pics...

Look what I bought off Ebay...

It's a french knitter - you just wind a handle, and out comes i-cord! So cool, and so much faster than doing it by hand. I blame redpajamamama actually - I fell in love with those booties! I seem to be fascinated by knitting and cording machinery at the moment. Julie makes them with a lucet - I think the Cog's mum showed me that method, but she just used her fingers. And today, I've just found this - which just appears to be a plastic disc with slots, but how is it done? Enquiring minds want to know!

First attempt at tunisian stitch, front and rear view, Wednesday - I later discovered I was doing a kind of variation on the knit stitch. Haven't figured out how to get the right hand selvedge to come out straight, hence the point. Yes, it got photographed upside-down, what do you expect for 10.05pm when I'm half-asleep from my new gym workout being a lot harder?! :)

This was the second attempt - I still didn't get the stitches quite right, and the edge is still all wavy. I think I will have to split the difference and ignore the first stitch every other row - unless anyone's got any suggestions as to what I'm doing wrong?!

Two charity jumpers - the neon jumper of luridness, in all its glory. Loud, huh? The one on the right - done on the chunky with two strands of blues. I like the striped effect you get when the ends are not blended.
This is the lace after 5 repeats. I think I'm getting the hang of it now, but I still carry a photocopy of the pattern around, to be on the safe side!

Current mood: curious

I discovered my SP!

I can't post too much right now, because I'm off out the door...

...but my secret pal is the lovely Hanne from Finland, who has been spoiling me rotten. Thanks for the white chocolate! I would take a picture, but, ahem, it didn't make it home in one piece! *blush*

Right, best be off. Coventry Knit Wits doesn't run itself. Well, it does, mostly, but let's not tell my ego!! :)


Current mood: happy

Bits n' bobs...

Some miscellaneous pictures...

Some "dropped stitch" tools - made from scrapped machine needles, and a bit of Fimo. They went like hot cakes at Knit Wits tonight, I must make some more! The needles are great for picking up dropped stitches - latch tools are about £2-3 to buy, it's just the needles aren't good enough for my machine, which is fussy.

The lace in it's current state. 2.5 repeats.

Just to prove not everything on my windowsill dies. Ok, somebody at work donated this cactus, and each flower only lasts a day, so thought I'd better snap it while I could.

Feeling headachey, sinus-bunged (!?) and hoarse. Hope I'm not coming down with something!

Current mood: sick

Amazon purchases and garter carriages...

I received "A Treasury of Knitting Patterns" and "A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns" by Barbara G. Walker in the post last week...

Tons and tons of fantastic patterns - cables, lace, two-colour slip stitch etc. I will never be able to use them all! I think my only small gripe about the books is that they are in black and white - but then there are so many patterns, perhaps the cost was prohibitive? The pictures are pretty clear, anyway. Think the Harmony Guides (which I also own), but bigger, and you get the basic idea.

The weird thing is, it's often cheaper to buy the books from the USA and get them shipped over here (if you don't mind waiting for them). One seller is selling the book for £99 (the cheapest is about £20). Do they think we're all daft?!

Next month I hope to get books 3 & 4.

I'd love to make a massive afghan with all the different stitches - it'd probably be the size of a football pitch, though!

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I also took the afternoon off last Monday, to attend a talk about garter carriages. Despite having a rather frightening experience with White Van Man (see here), it was a good talk, and I learnt a few things about my garter carriage. Mine is one of the early models so doesn't do casting on or off, but then I think I'd prefer to do that myself anyway - I don't trust it. A garter carriage, for those non-MKers, is a special carriage that walk across the machine, knitting or purling stitches based on a punchcard pattern. You *can* use it for rib - but it's very slow, even at top speed. You can leave it running unattended and go and do something else, and it will count down for you (or at least, that's the theory - mine is a little temperamental!). It's very noisy, too - you can't leave it running overnight, unless your bedroom is a long way away from it! I haven't used mine too much yet, because I've needed access to my machine to complete my OCN course, and the garter carriage ties the machine up for so long.

Have a look here for a really funny video with a garter carriage - it's a 3MB QuickTime .mov file by a male machine knittiner, Marc Chametzky.

There was a massive pile of cones and patterns - somebody had passed on, and the family had passed her knitting things to the club. Poor Pat just couldn't give the yarn away, it was such a shame! If there had been any DK stuff I would have had it for the Knit Wits, but it was all coned industrial stuff - I even resisted the magicolour stuff, which is not like me! I had a load of punchcards, all the DPNs, and some autumny colours - figured we could make some seaweed or something for the sea scene.

I felt bad about not taking more yarn, but I still have three big bags and a big box of it at home. I daresay it went down to the tip. What a shame!

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The neon jumper of luridness continues apace, a good mindless project I can do without even looking at the needles. I need to photocopy the lace chart for the Knitpicks scarf, so that I can carry the chart around without getting the book all battered.


Current mood: determined

Alas, poor knitpicks, I knew him well...

Here is the lace before it was frogged, plus a safety pin to hold up that dropped stitch.

Lace update...

Well, I was going to frog down to the first repeat...

But as I approached that point, it looked as if I had a dropped stitch that had made it all the way to the cast on row. So, it's now back into a ball. Never mind.

I'm feeling quite chirpy about it, actually. I supposed I ought to be gutted, but I'm not! Maybe it's the thought of the crispy chili beef that is on its way to the house as I type, maybe it's the unexpected sunshine, maybe it's just end-of-the-week euphoria!


Current mood: happy and hungry

SP10 Contest No. 2

With the weather turning warmer, many of you are thinking of traveling (though some of you have just returned, you can play along).

1) What do you pack to knit?

When I went to Barcelona, I packed the half-clapotis scarf Otis on Denise needles (airline friendly). It has to be something fairly easy that I'm not going to get lost in pattern-wise - lace wouldn't be good, especially if I was in a really relaxed frame of mind!

2) What do you hope to shop for?

Oh, I dunno - interesting knick-knacks, jewellery etc - I've got more than enough yarn.

Bonus: Where would you go on a "knitting holiday"?

Oh, central Wales without a doubt - Colinette is worth a few hours, plus there are one or two knitting/weaving museums in the area too. And of course, lots and lots of mobile wool in the form of sheep! :)

Lace knitting

Thanks for the lace tips, SP! Wish I'd read them first now!


Knitting beyond the Hebrides

I like the tip about using crochet cotton between repeats - my stitch markers keep snagging in the yarn, which is really annoying!

Yikes, frogging one repeat down, that looks scarey! Alas, I think I've made enough minor mistakes elsewhere throughout that I should probably frog the whole lot. Ok, ok, I admit it - I've been cheating! The numer of stitches has fluctuated a bit, so I've been adding an extra k2tog or increase at the end. Man, I am *so* slap-dash sometimes it's untrue!

It's going to have to be a stay-at-home project I think. I might also try the pattern in ordinary DK first, so that I can see where I've slipped up before.

Think I'd better downgrade my knitting skill to intermediate, too! LOL!

I'm a bit excited today (woke up at 6am) because I may or may not be going to Legoland Windsor today. My bro-in-law isn't feeling well so there's a spare ticket, and Wendy doesn't fancy going down on her own with two kiddies in tow. I'll know in half an hour I guess!


Current mood: determined

To frog, or not to frog...

Well, I've been carting the lace knitting around in my workbag like the complete plonker I am. It gets caught on things - I really should keep it inside something else. Anyway, the other day, I spotted a dropped stitch, about an inch from the bottom. I've safety-pinned it up so it doesn't go any further, but now I can't decide what to do!

If it was ordinary knitting, DK or something, I'd be able to drop down to it and pick it back up, or possibly just sew it so it doesn't run. But it's lace - v v fine, so if I sew it up it'll be visible, and I don't think I'll be able to pick it up, the pattern's too complex. So I suppose frogging is in order. I wouldn't mind, but that's about 4 inches worth! I'm a perfectionist, but only to a point - I have a low attention span and can be impatient, so I'm torn. Help, what do I do?!

In other news, I got a blister from 6 hours knitting - did try and photograph it, but it was a bit blurry!! It probably occurred in the morning, when I was so cold I could only tell I was knitting with my eyes! :)

Did a bit more on the Emily hat - not sure how long to make it really!

Rugby's Knitathon - in pictures!

This was at the freezing-to-death stage, so we all have our coats on! As always, click for bigger images!

I worked on two hand-knit projects - the neon jumper of luridness for charity, and a simple hat in Emily to match the Otis scarf. The latter may make it into the local paper, so look out!

That's my sequinned bag, to the right of the lady in the green coat in the first pic.

More el ar and lace knitting

Had to cast this one off THREE times, because I spotted a dropped stitch. Pah!

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Started on "Earth lit only by fire". Yes, I may well be insane. Didn't have quite the right no. of stitches on the first row, hoping it sorts itself out on the third. Thank goodness the even rows are just purl! :)

Had 3 hour "death by powerpoint graph" meeting this morning, followed by shortest ever sales meeting (2 minutes). That's 3 hours of my life I'll never have again!

Oh well. Knit-Wits tonight - not sure whether to just take big pile of sewing up (three charity jumpers at least to sew up, not to mention the DB cardigan), or to take lace - needs concentration, not talking, as I am following a chart!

We shall see.

Perhaps lace knitting is a good use for all the industrial yarn I seem to have collected? And then again.... perhaps I really AM insane!

Knitting eyecandy

Finished Otis - it's not really curved, I just did that to get it into shot!


Another Lizard Ridge square.

There are some garden pictures over on my personal blog. Not posting them here 'cause I'm sat in a sunbeam and getting too hot! Plus we have to go to B&Q for bathroom bits!!

Otis is done

To my secret pal:

I just finished knitting up "Otis" the scarf, and there's about 80g left over for a hat or something. Can't thank you enough for getting me this yarn - it's soo nice and soft I could cuddle with it all night! :)

Picture later, when I download the camera...