Startitis again...

This "use what you have" thing really seems to have sparked my mojo. I finished the tunisian cable scarf (pictures to follow), made a tuck scarf on the Passap from the Metbury Bitty book (still needs blocking) in that troublesome terracotta yarn (and STILL more yarn to go! Pah!). Poor Miss Swiss complained with error 200 a few times; I confess I defluffed both locks but completely ignored the beds, so that is my next job I think (it involves the hoover and some playing around with needle retainer bars, surgical spirit and oil). I've also cast on the Drops Blue Helix cardigan, a crocheted cardigan with a large star shape set into the back, except mine's stone, not blue, as it's leftover bamboo yarn from another project. Hoping it'll work up into a nice beach / summer cover up.

Meanwhile my s-i-l B taught me how to crochet two rows of UK trebles at once, yesterday, not a technique I'd heard of - though if she's using them in a garment, she prefers the look of them worked in vertical, not horizontal, stripes, as the WS and RS are more noticeably different. I had a bit of a destash and put some crochet hooks and my Denise needles up for sale on Ravelry, only because I'm no longer using them. I prefer inline hooks unless they're 3mm and under, and the Denise set is US sizes - since I upgraded to the KnitPro symfonie set (metric) I've not really needed them. 

The lace yoked sweater is drying in the bathroom and needs a light blocking. Pictures of the various things when the finished items are ready. Startitis, gotta love it! 

Current mood: energetic

Some works in progress, and experimenting with twisting stitches

My current obsession, the tunisian cable scarf "San Marino" - I'm now on strip three of three, so it's even further ahead than this!

I thought I'd have a go at the Irene Woods / Clearwater Knits lace yoked top. The two yokes took the best part of saturday afternoon to knit on the machine (the transfers are hand-manipulated), and spent yesterday blocking on the bed, alongside my little helper. To be fair, the grey and white blanket is "his" domain, so he's being very good not putting cat hair on my work. Next stop is joining the yokes and knitting the sleeves downwards... 

Some inspiration from M and S, I thought I'd try and replicate it by adding the ribber for one row to get very loose stitches. I don't think I'd want to do it all over though, this was a short-sleeved top or vest I think!

My attempt - first loose row, everything was just twisted 180 degrees using the 2 prong tool. On the second loose row, I turned the pairs 360 degrees, looks much more like it! I only wish I'd knitted a bit more and casted it off properly.

Does anyone else take random snaps of knitwear when out shopping, or is it just me?!

Current mood: busy

Spring startitis (kind of)

Regular readers will know I used to suffer terribly from startitis, every spring. Well, it's been late this year and absent in previous years due to my getting older, getting slower at finishing things, and general SAD type issues. When sleep is hard to obtain, inspiration for creating new things falls way down my list of priorities. Anyway, I've decided to just look at what's in the stash and try and make something (anything) with it, instead of "procrasti-planning" items in my head that I never get around to. So the leftover cone of sienna coloured boucle (Christine shawl nightmare, but this is just one end) might become a simple scarf, if it's not also moth-eaten and too fragile. Having said that, I've swatched T6, 7 and 8 in a yarn I hope to make into a sweater. The pattern's at T9, wouldn't ya know it? So another swatch is needed or a lot of maths, never a strong suit!

Work's been pretty busy thus stressful. I suspect part of it is my age - I'm irritable and grumpy and getting tired of dealing with unfixed bugs and general downgrading of the creativity I once was able to bring to the task at hand. Let's face it, designing conveyor systems isn't a dream job for someone who loves colour and creativity, but it's close enough and is at least a marketable skill I suppose, until AI takes that away from me for good. 

I'm delighted to be running a small two day machineknitting "retreat" which is already fully booked (the venue is quite small). If it goes well, I might run a single-day one. We'll see. I've got to check my machine "stable" and think about where we're all going to go. That's tomorrow's job. 

I've been starting to catalogue my books; it's a big job, and so far I've completed crochet, and partially  done machine knitting, hand-knitting and weaving, and I'm getting rid of a few I'll never use in the process. I've been amazed at what I've bought, flipped through, and then presumably hoped would stay in my brain by process of some weird osmosis! Anyway, in the vein of "use what I have to learn something", I'm teaching myself how to work tunisian cables. Now, a cable to me, in the purest sense, is when stitches appear to lean one way or the other, and under another set of stitches, to create a cabled pattern. So crochet cables (back post / front post) aren't quite cables in the strictest sense, as they are worked AROUND preceding stitches and not INTO them. Tunisian cables are much more like knitted cables in that they are worked into the stitches below. I purchased an Annie's Crochet book some time ago on the subject, and had leant it to a relative. When I got it back I thought it was about time I had a go. 

This is my second attempt. Whilst flipping through another book, which gives 3-4 samplers of various crochet techniques, I discovered I was doing my work too tight because the hook needs to stay on top of the work and not to the front... once I made my loops looser (and figured out the tunisian purl they are using, my first attempt was incorrect), it went a lot better. I'm ignoring how they instruct to work the cable though, I am cabling like I would in knitting. The book states I should rearrange all my loops and put them back onto the needle (an extra chain is worked between each cable "strand"). I'm just letting the loops hang off onto a cable needle and putting them back onto the loop when it's time to work them. It just works better for me! 

If I get far enough (I have to work 28 twists and then two more strips of this) it will be a scarf. The twists happen every 6 rows. Because I'm still learning how to "read" my work, I'm using stitch markers. No, I do not need any more scarves, but someone might! And yes, for the eagle-eyed, that last cross is wrong, it has been fixed!

Oh, and I've taken up netball, after a 40 year gap. Week one (taster week) there was one sprained ankle, and one momentarily dislocated shoulder. The first match week, one of our team members fell straight backwards during practice (ball to the face, she's short, and no, I did NOT throw it!) and cracked a vertebra. I may have lost my mind if that sort of thing keeps happening, and my knees did complain a bit the following day. Mid-life crisis? I hated sport at school until later on, because I was short and sturdy. Watch this space! :D 

Current mood: exhausted

Things can only get better...

TLDR 2 paragraphs: the car issues get resolved somewhat

I'm cautiously optimistic that the issues with the car are solved (financially, anyway; a full refund is pending). Still annoyed about the perception of how I was treated, as I had to resort to chasing them on the 'phone several times a week by the end. "I'll be in touch" seemed to be meaningless (I started to keep a communications log, mostly my calling them). They peed off more than three of my many hats - engineers (we do a good job, not a bodge, or we admit we are incapable and find someone who is), quality control (first install had zero), safety rep (first install electrically unsafe), and fire marshall (ditto). I think I will send a letter of complaint, because I'm still financially in deficit because of this, but I'm happy to write that off just to be shot of the whole matter really. I was poised to start legal proceedings tomorrow. It's rather handy to have a sister in law (retired teacher of law at secondary school level) who can turn a 4 page rant into bullet points, and then put the correct legal letter (just the facts, ma'am) at the front. But it will wait until I see the dosh. I might also cc trading standards, because this could have become a very serious matter. Let's hope they're wrong about my car still having battery issues - we'll find out soon enough I guess! Cannot test it at the mo because my cousin is repairing and calibrating our voltmeter which had blown fuses. 

So my sleep is still pretty shot. Dropping asleep at 8pm in front of the telly, fighting it until 9pm, then going to bed and waking up at 2am? Programmes that make no sense because my consciousness is in and out? Rubbish! So exhausted today, I feel drunk and woozy (and I had one bottle of beer last night, so it's not a hangover). I suspect I'm on the brink of nervous exhaustion, and I'm noticing my varifocals more, hence the wooziness. It'll pass, I hope!

Anyway, actual craft content! The cardigan below is Drop's Red Berry Hill, except I didn't knit it in coloured stripes, nor use the right yarn (this is James C Brett marble chunky) - and I did add the cables. Possibly could have been a smidge longer (I have a long torso and short legs), and it doesn't quite fit around my bust so if I made it again I'd add a few rows, but overall I'm pretty happy with it. I'm wearing it right now, in fact. 

Plus the finished tunisian crochet cushion. Mum said she thought the sideways sheep looked like pacman?

I just added press studs in the end, a zip probably would have been better but not something I felt up to tackling.

Today we've both just piddled about, I've been getting some minor tasks done. My favourite kind of day is a day with no plan. Yesterday I marched around town like a mad thing (my calves are screaming right now) getting provisions and library books, whilst the Cog watched the footie. We had planned to visit a distant relative, but he's poorly AND got COVID, so he postponed. I did get to catch up with C about planning a two day machine knitting seminar at her arts venue. Watch this space! I hope it comes off, because there's quite a bit of interest, but I mustn't say more until things are more firm. But of course I'm already making plans in my head. It's nice to have a fun thing to focus on, instead of the nightmare of the last nine weeks which pretty much erased any good feeling around Xmas. Spring is springing, and hopefully someone will be round next week to put in missing honeycomb mesh in the roof (the builders left it out 20 years ago, shocking!), because Ms Starling is back for year 3 of nest building already, and I need her to move elsewhere! 

It's very nice to see lighter evenings and buds on everything. Hurray for spring, now I just need to slow down and breathe again! We've got some time off coming up too. Lots to look forward to!

Current mood: exhausted but vertical (only just)

Baby steps, and the struggles of a perfectionist

We had a short break in Bristol last weekend. It was ok, though the weather was decidedly blah. We ate well and visited the SS Great Britain, which was fascinating. Not sure I'd particularly visit again but it was a nice change. We walked a lot as our hotel was a good twenty minutes outside town.

Not much progress to report, but I did successfully knit a sleeve in English rib on the Passap. I managed to drop a few stitches when casting off, but they've been fixed with handknitting needles. Many thanks to jkisala on the Ravelry Passap group for giving me the pointers to understand the pattern. The other sleeve should go much quicker, and I've already knitted the back and a front once, so they should be ok.

Since picking up the cross stitch in Birmingham a few weeks back, it has been taking up a lot of my time. I find it quite soothing, except for when I go wrong and have to unpick bits. I've also made some progress on the second tunisian crochet sheep cushion cover, though it took two false starts to get the corners right on the last white section (so I ended up effectively going backwards last Wednesday when I worked on it). I didn't have that trouble with the first one so perhaps I managed to overthink it somehow.

In the meantime I've been enjoying using the fancy new pen, and feeling pretty meh about the Wing Sung 3013, which is a TWSBI copy. Not sure if it's the nib width, which appears to be extra fine, but the ink just doesn't seem to want to flow very smoothly. It may end up in the circular file, or on Ebay. A pity, I would not have wasted £10 on it if I'd known. The Platinum Plaisir is also a joy to use, and I'm dying to know if it really IS a ball bearing seal in the cartridge - though it seems fairly frugal with ink, so it might be a while before I can find out!

No more holiday for a while, and the Cog has instigated the diet again. Ugh. I wouldn't mind if I felt it was working, but after twelve months it's getting a little tiresome!

Current mood: working

Objects of desire

Sorry for the prolonged quietness here. There hasn't been much to report craft-wise, and I'm sure nobody needs to read the minutiae of my boring life here! I did a bit of tunisian crochet, based on a blanket pattern - I charted it because it was written longhand, an Annie's Crochet baby blanket book I picked up last year. I can confirm, going up two hook sizes makes for much less curly crochet, though the reverse stitch edges are a bit wavy for my liking. However, this has since been unravelled, and is becoming a simple crochet scarf because I was going to run out of yarn. So the photo is for posterity more than anything else...

In other news, I traded in two lenses to MPB which I was never going to use - a 60mm macro lens and a 400mm zoom lens that was so heavy, it's visited many a hotel room and never left. I swapped it for my first-ever non-Canon lens, a Tamron 18-400mm (!) travel zoom that is half the weight. I can't wait to get out there and use it! The trade in process was very easy and I'd use it again in a heartbeat. Of course I've already fitted UV filters on my new lenses, after I nearly smashed a lens at an AGM. It's not worth a heart attack!

Finally, the temperatures are climbing here. It's been a very chilly spring, and I'm glad to see the sun more. I finally got some HRT gel and it made a marked difference to my sleep pattern straight away, I have had several movie-length dreams. Miracle gel! Who knew, it was my hormones all along? Hopefully I can get some more when this one runs low, I gather supply issues have been sticky lately.

Current mood: happy

FO: Sheepy square and two scarves

Another DBJ scarf, with the flared edge I'm not so keen on. Oops!

The finished basketweave crochet scarf. It's cosy!

The finished sheepy square. Feels as if it could do with either a smaller hook or a bit of decreasing around the edges, but this is unblocked acrylic at the moment...

Another new PM - that was fast! I shall say naught more - the news is an omnishambles that depresses, so I avoid it as much as possible. I'm more gutted that we have a partial solar eclipse but too much cloud to get a good enough view.

Current mood: happy

Just finish it, already!

Well, I really enjoyed the fun of getting the hang of tunisian crochet at the weekend. Having asked on Ravelry re the whole "do I need to join in the round?" thing, I was sent a link to an amazing spreadsheet that links to tons of tunisian videos - it could take me quite some time to work through that! Kudos to the folks that put the spreadsheet together! It was started by Do-you-crochet and Alpag over on the Tunisian Crochet Explorers group, if you're interested to know more. 

Anyhoo, I was fairly close to finishing off the purple poncho I started at the start of lockdown (yes, I know!) so that got finished off though I missed weaving in one end in this rear view. It's too tight on the neck for me - I can't abide anything that close to my chin - so it will be donated to charity. It's a shame, but the yarn is a loosely spun single which won't stand unpicking - as it was, it partially disintegrated during my grafting of the live stitches to the side, so, I'm done. 

I also decided to finish crocheting the basketweave scarf, yet to be photographed in full - great TV crochet - and try and get some other projects finished by the end of this year. I like quite long scarves, almost my height, so there's enough to wrap around and chuck over a shoulder. I'm a bit blah over the granny square blanket now, I want to unpick the lot and do tunisian in the round with the yarn instead. Rats. No, that won't be happening - some of the yarn is boucle for a start! I'm not a complete sadist... The "Tomato Delight" passap top is skulking around in a bag somewhere, it just needs some very time-consuming crochet with a 2mm hook and 2ply yarn to finish the cuffs and hem, the latter will need a lot of work as it's come out on the cropped side. I'm hibernating the stars and hearts bunting I debated in the depth of lockdown - maybe they will end up as appliques on the granny blanket. As for the Glimmer shawl... meh - if the knitted-on edging wasn't in yarn that had sequins in it, I'd frog the edging and crochet one on instead, it would have been finished ages ago! 

Work and life has been very busy, hence the scattered energies! Well, I was always a great starter of things - I'm always motivated to get started, but I get bored after a few weeks usually. So the blog post title is for me more than anything. 

Cawston WI have made some more post box toppers, one of which I got a shot of this morning. The theme is harvest festival, and I had planned to knit a CSM pumpkin, but never got time. I do prefer useful knitting, maybe it's a generational thing - but these are cheery in these dark times of soaring inflation and industrial action. After the vandalism of the previous postbox topper I need to think hard about not taking such destruction too personally I suppose. I was meant to go help assemble it Monday night but was in a foul mood after a massive amount of work was dropped on me in the middle of a team meeting with no prior consultation - I didn't want to take my bad mood to the meeting! So much for catching up on admin this week, and 16 hours work down the drain. So disappointing. 

Just out of shot on the second one, a cauliflower! Let's hope the locals can resist the urge to damage them this time.

Current mood: blah

Gent, FO roundup and learning a new skill

Well, September flew by! I had a two day demo at the Alexandra Arts cafe, where I made two pairs of socks and a pair of fingerless gloves on the CSM and flatbed respectively. L helped me make some hats, which need a smidge of steam to control the flippy up mock ribs. Oh, and I made it to page 6 of the local newspaper, misspelt as usual (the photographer wrote it down correctly but someone always thinks they know better!) and not my best shot! 

The following weekend was the guild AGM, detailed in the previous post. Last weekend my partner and I had a short break in Gent, or Ghent (the H appears to be optional and doesn't appear in the train station name so I will go with the former!).

Gent was lovely, although someone narrowly missed hitting me with a properly dangerous full size umbrella, dropped off the bridge on the second shot (I was about level with the red life preserver at the time!). Not sure if it was an accident or a student prank, that bridge ballustrade is pretty thick! The weather was a bit hit and miss, but we loved the pavement cafes, cobbled streets, excellent beer and food, and the friendly people. We visited two of the churches and the bell tower, and I picked up a lovely tapestry handbag in the sale. Suitcase space was severly limited so we did not bring back chocolate or beer, alas!

This weekend I learned to do this:

I picked up a copy of "Learn Tunisian Crochet in the Round" by Sandy Walker at the AGM, along with two other tunisian books. The photo tutorial in the front was a bit confused - at one point it refers to working into the legs of the tunisian stitches, when you are still in the foundation crochet set up part of the pattern. Some of the pictures are clearly out of sequence, though that might be deliberate. I could not understand the bit about closing each round with a tks so decided to skip it in the end, having watched someone else do this technique on youtube - she did the corner increases differently - I might try that method next time, tss, yo and tss into the same loop is fiddly - and didn't join. I do wish they'd get such books read by a proofreader who tries the technique from scratch. It would also help if they'd put all the tunisian stitch diagrams on one page, instead of peppered throughout the book - this is an Annie's Crochet book and they have a comprehensive page of crochet stitches in the back, most of which aren't even required in this book. I did try and contact the designer via Facebook but you have to join her FB group before you can message her (and I haven't been approved yet) and anway, it's academic now... 

Anyway, those small gripes aside, my version is a true spiral - the lack of a join doesn't seem to be making a difference anyway! I love this technique and can see how I could rechart it for other designs - no idea what I'm doing with this sheep design but I'll figure something out! A cushion cover perhaps? It's supposed to be 16" square when finished though of course it's US DK which might not be quite the same as UK DK. There's an amazing fairisle sampler afghan in the back of the book - what a pity I'm mostly out of DK yarn, other than the two shades I'm using here! I suspect I might have to tackle that at some point, despite the fact I have no need of more blankets here! I just love making them and seeing the patterns appear, especially as in this technique the aspect ratio seems to be 1:1 so much easier to design things to come out in the correct proportions.

This morning we were greeted with this as we made our breakfast. Got to love those autumn sunrises!

Current mood:  impressed