Vagueness... tired and grumpy...

Still wrecked from flying in last night.

Haven't knit anything in a few days due to travel and general busyness.

Have given self break from ongoing scarf action and am knitting blue monkey for friend's belly boarder. Let's hope it is as cute as intended and not some freakish thing that's scary for new small people.

Am loving the whole 'vintage is in' thing and am very much wishing for rather a lot more money than I actually... well... have. Also not terribly pleased about putting on (more) weight. Want to find time to lose it, but tired and grumpy does not equate well to dieting, and too busy to work out when I can exercise (no pun intended).

Am thinking very hard that I want to celebrate my new acceptance of pink as a wardrobe colour when incorporated into girly vintage-retro thing and am considering knitting myself something pink and black edged out of my new Vintage Knits book. But. Monkey and Scarf first... :(

Then I might be able to find someone to make me the gorgette black and white polka-dotted wrap dress for work that I couldn't find today (more's the pity).

Will get psyched at some point and post actual pictures of said project lumps, but .. tired now... maybe early bed.

I am such a sad old person, I tells ya.

Meh.

I am thinking I should post, only I'm in such a funk. Work is pretty terrible, and I am stressed out to the max. I am actually considering borrowing the work laptop.

Doing work at home is pretty much the line in the sand for me previously.

I'm wearing my new stripy socks, 'cause they make me happy.

Fitzwilliam's scarf is taking all my time as I'd really like to finish it for Friday (the birthday lunch) but it probably won't happen. Near, but not near enough. *sigh* And I redid over the start of it, as I wasn't happy with it. It's at the end of the scarf, so it showed too much and I just couldn't leave it. Hence, I lost a lot of time painstakingly pulling it out (don't unravel cables, they are a nuisance) and reknitting it until I was happy.

It looks better at any rate.

Next week (sobs) I am going to Canberra again. Don't ask me why, I'll just start ranting at you and I like you well enough to not subject you to that. I'm back towards the end of the week. So, no posting after Sunday.

oh, and in slightly better news, my books arrived (Wheeee!) Very exciting. Yes, I'm a book geek as well as a gamer geek and a knit geek. And I'm fine with that. (Looks defiant)

New Knitty is up!!

You know you want to see..

Fitzwilliam gets a scarf

Well, the socks are nearly done.

I have an admission to make.

Despite good progress .... the socks are different sizes. Not hugely so, and the both fit, but the second sock is slightly larger. (It actually fits a little better I think). I think my gauge is loosening up as I get the hang of knitting continental style.

Anyway, I considered ripping something out, and redoing it. But considering the work already done, the fact I've reknit both heels twice for different stuff ups, I made an executive decision.

I DON'T CARE. They are both function, the differences are not catastrophic, and I shall live with it. I dare not get silly about it as they are, after all, socks. They will forgive me.

Since the socks are nearly done, my head turned to my next project.

Uh, that'd be Fitzwilliam's birthday present. I usually get him books. But since he's effectively giving himself half a library for his birthday, that was a bust. I considered a range of things and then gave in and did the pragmatic thing.

I asked him.

Thankfully, he seems fairly pleased with the suggestion, so that was fine.

Thus, a grey aran-type cabled scarf.

I tried out a few variations and eventually decided on one. The yarn is Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed. It's got a bit of silk and cashmere mixed in with wool, and thus feels luscious. The tweed yarn is really very different in texture from the straight (no puns intended) Silkroad, which I used in the Ultra (bulky 16ply) version for my Skully jumper. Which is gorgeous.

Anyway, Fitzwilliam, being both my best mate (and in this case, effectively family) and someone who actually takes care of his clothes, gets the nice Silk/Cashmere/wool mix. Other people who may be family but less likely to appreciate and take care of things I knit get smaller stuff in machine washable blends. :)

It's turning out nicely anyway. It's actually so tweedy, I was worried the cables wouldn't show, but they seem to be coming along nicely now. Let's hope he likes it!

p.s. sorry you can't see the cables too well in the photo - you can see them fine in person :(

You know, designing web page blogs is a pain in the ass.

I tried. I think I am over it.

Despite making myself a beautiful new banner (see?).. I just can't get my head around getting the new page layout to work. It makes no sense.

My geek-dad assured me that using FrontPage would do all the work for me, but no joy.

I can see what I want in my head, but just can't figure it out. I tried templates online, tried making sense of FrontPage, but can't get it to do what I want.

Maybe I'm just tired from programming at work today. SAS programming.. meh. I thought I was done with that. But I have this problem see? It's a shocker at work too... I can't sit by and watch people take bloody forever with a half baked solution to something that I know just isn't that hard when you have a clue about what you're doing.

So now I'm being helpful and getting them sorted out so I can go back to my project.

The first sock is done by the way. No photos, the camera is away and the camera owner isn't here. You'll have to just take me at my word.

Did I mention I have books coming from Amazon?

I blame my best mate. Let's call him Fitzwilliam. Books are his pornography. And, no, not that kind of books. And no not literally...

Anyway, the great enabler that I am, I introduced him to two money chewers - Borders, and Amazon. He's a pig in mud now, honestly.

And now he's taken a turn and enabled me - he's ordering a stack of books and offerred to let me cash in on his huge order, to avoid the initial postage cost.

My list changed several times .. but now consists of:

• Scarf Style
• Knitting Without Tears
• Vintage Knits
• You Can Do It: The Merit Bage Handbook for Grown Up Girls
• Lighten Up! Free yoursle from clutter

I have a feeling I've forgotten another knit book, but I really can't recall which one. Of course, it could be one of the 5 or so I culled at the last minute when I realised I couldn't really justify quite so many books. At least not at once. I feel like a book-glutton.. ;-)

Of course, I am also counting the days til they arrive, and trying to decide if I want to wait on starting anything new until they get here...

Note to self, start something you need to get done anyway.. maybe the baby gift, yet-to-be-decided on for friend's belly-boarder....

Almost a whole sock done

No, really. I have about another half inch of ribbing and then start the next one. They are even a decent length!

See thusly.

And more here - sideways view.

And toe view.

I think I got snap happy.

I also think, in all honestly that I would do more ease (or rather, less negative ease) on my next pair. I used knitty's universal sock pattern. Except I used the Magic Cast On method, also from knitty to do the toes instead of the short row toe. Did the short roe heel though.

I have also been working on a new banner for my blog in photoshop. Who knows? By the time you're looking at this, maybe it's there already. Is it pretty? Do you like?

I also have a bunch of plans for what else I want to put on my blog, including progress bars, "things I listen to" section, a "I want to knit" list, a "I want a find a pattern for" section and a "What should I be?" section for yarns without pattern true-love... anyway might go do some now...

A doll called Lizzie and what happens when knit-geeks need a key ring..

As promised, here is Lizzie (my newly-named doll. Pride and Prejudice - one of my all time favorite heroines. It was either that, or Thursday (as in Thursday Next, my other favorite heroine from the Jasper Fforde series about her. Thursday would appreciate a doll called Lizzie I think..)

I digress. You can see here the finished jacket and top. Also, I knitted her a pair of purple stripy legwarmers. I think I'll knit her a pair of gauntlet style-gloves also at some point, after the sock drive wears off.

Speaking of which, I had to rip out most of the sock previously shown and start over. While I have been enjoying trying out knitting continental style, I discovered my gauge is considerably tighter when knitting that way - though MUCH faster. So I re-measured my gauge and did it over. I'm nearly at the heel (version 2). Didn't get much knitting done while away this time (though trip was successful).

Also, I mentioned my lovely new keychain. Here it is :)

I like it a lot. It's cute and knitting the sock with left over sock yarn is no work at all!

And another pic with the sock taken off...
Terribly cute, and really quite cheap. The company name is Felted Up.. can't find the other details at the moment, but they include a copy of the pattern for the sock in the postage and keychain mini-sockblocker.

Anyway, I'm off. Long week, and busy/productive weekend so I am wiped.

New week tomorrow.. (whew!)

Yes! We have striping sock yarn! (homemade)

Well, the three colour stripes are home made ;-)

Here is my appearing sock. Toe up, obviously.

Also, I am trying out continental knitting style after the lovely Clementine over at the craftyaction SnB showed me. After seeing diagrams where it looked too confusing for words... it was so simple. I have no idea how to purl, but since I am just doing masses of stockinette, it doesn't matter! It just seems SO much quicker, I am really impressed. I think I'd still revert to english style for anything complicated, but good to know.

I have a bunch of ideas to jazz up my space here, but haven't got around to it. I had a nice picture of my variegated yarn that I took see on the right there. I was going to make myself a cool new banner with the red colours etc to work with what I have already.

Then, when looking up something on Brenda Dayne's Cast On page for her podcast, noticed she uses almost exact the same kind of thing! Horrors! Can't be that much of a poor imitator, even if I didn't know it at the time :(

So, I shall find something, honest. Maybe my doll can be my mascot :) Oh, and I finished her jacket too, will photograph and post that later. It looks good. She's getting legwarmers next...

I dyed sock yarn with KoolAid. Whee! Cherry tart socks to come!

Okay I went and bought some Patonyle in white and decided to try it out. It has a nylon content of around 20%, so I was worried it might not work. Obviously, I worried for nothing. The yarn, cooling down waiting to rinse is shown on the left.


And after balling it into hanks here.

I used the exceptionally clear instructions on Eunny Knits! website. The directions are here and are for self striping socks. I didn't do the fiddly thing about figuring out how long things should be etc to make perfect stripes. I may yet rue this when my stripes are yukky, but never mind ;)
As you will see, I was quite impressed by Eunny's dark red/red/pink combo and so made my own version.

I used 3 sachets of Black cherry for the dark red, 2 sachets of cherry for the red, and 2 of strawberry kiwi for the pink. I found the black cherry has a slight rust red thing to it, but otherwise am very happy with the results. All that remains now is to decide the pattern.

I am considering knee highs (if the yarn will stretch that far - i doubt it). I am toying with which pattern to use - I want simple to show off the stripes and am thinking about either the universal sock pattern or the widdershins. I doubt I'll get gauge on the latter though my pre-dyeing mini trial was around 30st over 10cm. I do think I'll try the magic cast on from knitty - people keep raving about it in podcasts I listen to..

So it's socks this week :) I did want to start my Arrrgyles, but couldn't justify all that extra yarn on top of the stuff to dye. Oh, and I want to knit some Baudelaire.

Dolly has a hat and shirt... and the KoolAid came!

Okay, I am becoming the world's biggest knit geek. No, really.

I am totally geeking out over my new toys.

Firstly, my KoolAid came (via mail, via eBay), promising future dyeing happiness. See the pile of future entertainment on the left there...







Also, I have (so far finished a hat and shirt for my still-yet-to-be-named) doll.

The hat still needs to have the purple and black tassels to be added on each point.

My man thinks I'm a little odd, knitting all this stuff. But I love the quick turn around and it's proving a little addictive knitting such quickly finished stuff. I'm working on a long burgundy coat for her now. And have some purple variegated 4 ply cotton that will become either socks or, more likely, leg warmers. And a pair of fingerless gauntlet/gloves.

Apologies for the blurriness - this is my phone camera. I realised I shouldn't permanently be stealing my mum's camera, and thus returned it. A cheap digital camera is now on my 'to buy' list fairly soon.

All done. Horrible week in the non-knitting life. Nothing earth-shattering, just a little cheerful-ness-shattering. Next time, should be posting with more doll clothing!

I forgot to mention... I finished the Vogue Holiday Lace Cardigan!

Mostly I forgot this since I posted on that other blog ;)

Here is a picture. It's pretty. (The cardigan, not so much the photography. But hey, I had to use the timer and kitchen bench. Darling man was still sleepy and I needed to pack it for the trip.)

Oh, and yes, I did sew the ends in, despite their appearance here ...

Anyway... ta DA!

It's beautiful, and having now worn it a whole day, is like wearing a gentle caress all day.

That's sounds kind of tacky when I write it, total knitting porn. But, dammit, it really does!!

BRRrrrr! Canberra is COLD!

Okay, so I am back from chilly Canberra.

My cardigan survived the trip and was much admired .. ahhhhh....

I got a bit of knitting in, mostly on my daughter's red ribbed jumper, which I am knitting bottom up and will probably be a raglan sleeve. I haven't decided yet, and will work it out when I get closer to needing to do so.

I also realised that I haven't done the show-and-tell of my darling new dolly :)

The 'Dinara' doll is from AK Traditions who have absolutely gorgeous doll kits. That is, you get the doll, with a kit of materials and patterns to make her clothes and belongings. See below my kit's contents (though I bought additional patterns, you still get quite a few - enough for an outfit- in the basic kit). Kits come as sewing, knitting, quilting and combination types as far as I can tell.

I am really very, very happy with what I got for the money. The doll is very well made, and quite a bit larger than I thought. (Larger close up of her on the left.) I've started making her basic coat, and then will probably make the paperbag hat.

I am seriously thinking about using her as a test 'mini me'. So if I'm thinking about making myself a particular unusual colourway or pattern, I can try a mini version on her. I suspect that I will also make her things I can't really get away with wearing anymore and/or just use up leftover yarn to make her things. I consider her my new knitting mascot, and she will grace my new spare room (to be also known as the 'quiet room') in our new house.

I'll post stuff when I finish them.

Also, my new Keychain Sock Blocker came in the mail, which I will photograph and post when I can be bothered ;) That's very cute too, and has got me thinking about socks for my dolly here. Must name her at some point too...

My mum is a legend.

I don't mean like 'the tooth fairy' or even 'hydra' or whatever.

I mean a saves-my-ass-by-crocheting legend.

[Translation: She came over tonight, was sympathetic to my knitting catastrophe, (while my man smiled knowingly while I explained the depths of pain), played with my daugher while I resewed the back in (correctly this time), gave my daughter a bath while I cooked dinner and then after dinner crocheted all the edging - including extra reinforcing around the neckline to make sure it sat flat on me.]

I bow down to her ability to be wonderful, supportive and the crocheter that I can't be, at the time I really needed her to be.

Mum, you're a legend.

Tomorrow, I seam in the sleeves, sew in the loose ends and on the button I shall purchase.

With luck, Saturday the finished cardi goes with me to Canberra. Wish me luck.

p.s. thank you so much to the supportive comments in my time of knitting grief. Much appreciated!

Slapped down by the knitting gods

Oh god.

Last night I felt so sick about it, I didn't even post the misery.

I am on a tight time schedule, as I am flying out interstate on Saturday. I REALLY want to take the cardigan with me, nay, I need it to go over a dress for a formal thing I have.

Last night I seamed up the body of the cardigan and the lace edging (ie everything bar the sleeves). As I packed it away, I noticed something was not quite right.

After much examination, I realised what it was.

I seamed the back panel inside out.

It was easy to miss, the different is subtle. So subtle, I could have left it you say?

Possibly. I considered it. Seaming it had taken my whole evening. I went to bed, feeling quite sick at the thought. I didn't even know if you could
unseamed Rowan Kidsilk Haze lace.

I slept on it and woke obsessing over the mistake. I didn't know how I was going to get through a whole work day worrying about whether I'd be able to fix it or whether it was ruined forever.

Then. Brief moment of hope. I got up early, got ready in record time and sat down with it and a cup of coffee.

It's apart again. It's painstaking. I stopped every time to make sure I was only pulling on the seam thread, and not the lace. But it's done. I can seam it over again now.

Who knows, maybe one day I'll do a tutorial on un-seaming lace mohair. But not today, today is just mixed unwellness and relief.

Arrrgh Matey! We be tempted by pirate socks!

I'm kinda busy, and not a big sock knitter, or a mad-argyle lover, or skully-lover, but the combination has me tempted.

Who's interested in an Argh!-a-Long?

Dyed Like Me.

I had the best time today, with the Dye-O-Rama thanks to Clementine, our organiser (thanks Clem!) and Amber, our kind host (Thanks Amber!)

I enjoyed it terribly, found it wonderfully addictive. Came home immediately wanting to do more :)

My attempts shown below. I'm happy with them, but hopefully others will post theirs too, some were SO beautiful.

:)
Thanks all for a really nice afternoon.

Finished the lace base border!

Yay me!!

As seen here, modelled by the fronts and back of my yet-to be sewn cardi! Very pleased, as am very very keen to have it done for Saturday, when I fly out to Canberra (brrr!) for work and visiting a darling friend of mine :) (Hey Alex!)

I also found a more portable way of doing the edging, as shown on the left. It's a laminated copy of the instructions, with one row to one line. Much easier to read than the pattern, a lot more hardy, and the post-it keeps my place easy in case of "oh, there's the bus" stuffing-of-knitting-into-bag..

I also had a wonderful day at Amber's house, as organised by Clementine (thanks Clem!) dying yarn for the first time. Man, talk about addictive! I came home all full of thoughts about how to get a good colour selection of KoolAid and if our thoughts on citric acid + food dye would work as well... photos of my attempts at the SnB page here.

Nearly there on the Vogue lace cardigan - second sleeve finished

Yes, it's true. I finished the second sleeve on the bus ride home today.

See it thus:

Very happy with the progress..

It's also being tracked in craftyaction, just so as you know..

I bought a book.

Well, I'm not (to date) much of a Yarn Harlot enthusiast.

That said, when I saw Knitting Rules! at a Dymocks, I picked it up.

I am such a knit geek, I relate to practically everything! I am struggling not to gorge myself and just read the rest in one sitting.

I do that with books. I can read a novel in a day if I am not careful. It's bloody expensive!

Anyway, I've enjoyed it terribly much. Funny, amusing and useful - who would have thought?!

The yarn arrived!

Okay very happy - my darling man picked up my yarn from post office on Friday and so I got back into knitting the Vogue Lace Cardi's last sleeve !! Yay me!

I got about 2 inches of it done during our Friday night D&D game :)

2 weeks until I fly. My darling mum agreed today to do the crochet edging for me.

I recognise that crochet is something I need to learn how to do. But I also decided that learning on my Kidsilk Haze is probably not the best option.

One sleeve, a bunch of lace edging and some seaming until I can wear my burgundy lace goodness :) :)