Clickety-click

I’m not in my usual garment knitting frenzy, but I’m knitting.

I’m up past the waist and into the increases. I’ve decided to fiddle with the pattern a little lengthwise, from the waist to the armholes. I’m short in the middle, so I’m keeping my eye on the length, and depending on how it is once I’ve done the increases, I’ll probably go with the smaller size length measurement. It’s only a matter of  1/4 of an inch, but it must make a difference, else it’d not be in the pattern ^_^.

I am enjoying knitting this and, even at a little bit of knitting here and there, with the chunky yarn it’s growing at a reasonable rate.

Distinct lack of coat…

I am being slow.. kinda. I did knit 10ins of someone else’s cardi this week – it seemed easier to redo the back to fix the mistake, than work out where it was. I’ve had another cold, thanks to my very lovely, but germ ridden, bf, his being here and the subsequent snot filled aftermath cut into knitting time. The kitten also has to be asleep before I can knit.

So the project I’m working on, is the Riding Coat from the Big Easy by Debbie Bliss. I’m doing it in Teal, a colour I love, rather than the red of the sample and today I have the knitting bug (and less snot), but also have a ton of housework to catch up on.. yet here I am procrastinating, by blogging about it all, rather than doing any of it.

I know in my heart I won’t be able to settle to knit until I’ve at least cleaned and tidied a little, and puttiing it off won’t make it go away… guess I need to step away from the sofa and the laptop, no I will not *just check* Ravelry or Facebook one last time…

Ludyphants…

I decided to try an Elijah for Ludy, who knits and likes squishables. So far it’s going fine, pattern is simple, but you need to keep track of the increases and decreases. I know I am going to hate the ears as much this time as I did last time, but I am pushing forward and hopefully they will go by nice and fast.

I have some little silver metal hearts somewhere, if I can find them I will knit one inside, hopefully it will stay put just under his skin, where the shape can be felt, and Ludy will know he has a heart to love her back.

Post funk.

Things are poddling along. Benefits now sorted out, although I’m not sure I cancelled a standing order in time, so may need to poke HA for a refund at some point. Feel I can now relax a little. My biggest chore now is to catch up on the laundry – if the EU had a laundry mountain to go with their butter mountain & milk lake of past years, people would look at my flat and think it was being stored here. I frogged the grey gloves, because I had dropped a stitch waaaay back on the increases, and with the slipped stitches it seemed easier to reknit them that try to work it out.

More yarn to wind, I got more grey to make hat/scarf to go with the gloves, although I managed to order Aarni instead of Maahinen… it’s natural undyed from the same sheep so the colour matches so it’ll be fine. I also have my NDS precious lace to wind.

I’m hoping my lace head sorts out soon I could do with having something pretty to knit as well as something practical, especially as I have all this lovely yarn to use. Maybe I have too much choice, hence my inability to start and stick with anything.

When I started knitting again, I was determined not to have a big stash of yarn, I was going to buy yarn for specific projects. I was going to knit them and move on to new yarn and a new pattern. Then I started planning in advance and bought yarn for *future projects*.. then I changed my mind and bought yarn for something else, then I’d just see yarn I loved and bought it and, slowly but surely, I ended up with a stash. I now have a specific area just for all my knitting paraphernalia.

Insidious stuff this yarn.

I have been knitting, honest..

Plodding on with the gloves. Plodding in a good way, I feel fine about picking up and putting down, doing a row here and there. I’m now knitting two pairs though.. the plum ones and a grey pair (I can get more of the grey to make a hat/scarf, but not enough of the plum). I’m crocheting the odd row of flowers too, when the mood takes me.

My Arabella may have bitten the dust.. again. I had an envelope with my row notes on.. like you do, and then I stupidly tidied up, things don’t get lost when the place is a mess, I know exactly which pile of stuff is which, but yeah… the envelope has gone to the great recycling plant in the sky. I’ll print out the pattern and see if I can work out where I am, but it may be Frogsville for the shawl again. I am determined to knit this, but maybe the knitting gods are telling me it’s not the right time… we’ll see.

I’ve also been busy cooking the last couple of days, I have a huge bowl of roasted veggies and some sweet and tasty oven dried tomatoes. I’m planning on a huge salad later with all my goodies. I’ve also managed to read a little.

All this activity = no blogging time, I must get more organised!

Toothpicks…

I have 2mm Bamboo needles. I thought metal ones might be a bit hard on the old hands. They do resemble long toothpicks though and bend alarmingly. The start of the gloves now seems a reasonable width.

I did have to go on a bit of a trek to get them and by the time I got back I was pretty much too tired to do much more than throw together some salad for dinner.  I did get some fabulous seeded oatcakes from Your Piece. I don’t see the 5 seed ones there, but they are very, very tasty. I also got some Vignotte and some really gorgeous *proper* cheddar – not the plastic wrapped stuff.

Got the new printer, it’s all installed and I even used to to print this afternoon.

And said what a good boy am I

I’ve just started knitting a pair of gloves – my first ever attempt. The pattern is called Bobbie by Julia Mueller. She has some amazing glove patterns. I’m using one of the skeins of Maahinen From Lena at Riihivilla, the purple one pictured below.

It reminds me of plums, and gloves have fingers and a thumb… so Little Jack Horner springs to mind.

The stitches used give a good texture to a (pretty much) self coloured yarn. I am really slow at knitting on fine needles – socks take me forever – so I’m pretty much taking this as it comes, they’ll be ready when they’re ready.. and in Scotland it’s not like we’re short of cold weather to remind me to get on with them.

Slowly, Slowly..

I’m still trying to get things organised properly after changing the living room. So much stuff got piled in the bedroom, the laundry got left to wash itself (didn’t work), and I ate lots of *bought* meals (as opposed to cooked meals). This lack of useful activity was compounded by my normal Endo pain which lasted over the weekend.

Today was mostly laundry, which helped clear space in the bedroom so I could get started in there. Bed needs changed and there is one more load to go in the machine, then I’ll dust & vacuum. Pile of mending can go on to the shelves, instead of sitting on top of the chest of drawers.. doesn’t mean I’ll get round to fixing those hems or buttons any sooner, but it looks tidier. Tomorrow I’ll also empty & take out the bins. It might almost be like a real person lives here after that.

Knitting has NOT been going so well up until today. I started numerous projects and frogged all of them. My head was still pretending it was full of mince. I finally managed today, on try #4, to work all the set up and 1 pattern repeat of Arabella by Kristen Hanley Cardozo, Number 4 mainly because I got a little lost  and when I tried to frog back to my lifeline I snagged and snapped the yarn. I bought the double package of Kristen’s shawl patterns, and might use my Precious 4 ply for a Clothilde. I have also made a little headway on my cardi for Tor, she saw my Not Just Noro in the flesh (much nicer than the pictures) and wants one.. did I tell you all this before? Like I said head has been mince, so I apologise for any repeating.

Learn to read, young Raa (well OK not so young)

I don’t mean books here, or even patterns (although reading charts would be useful). I need to learn to read me. A lot got done yesterday, I escaped much of the aftermath. I think the bath and painkiller before bed were a stroke of genius on my part. All I have suffered from today is an over abundance of tired. I ended up back in bed for a chunk of the day.

I should know by now that tired+knitting=frogging. It’s a simple equation, easy to remember. Except when you are tired and a determined bugger. The Gypsy Rose Leaf got cast off very slowly last night. It’ll get blocked once I’m organised and not about to have a dinner guest. Today I hummed and hawed over what to do next. I have four WsIP right now, 2 only need blocked (see dinner guest above), 1 only needs seamed (not feeling the seaming love) and the last one is a snuggley scarf (not the weather right now to give me the impetus to go on with that… even up here in Scotland). Should I wait for more yarn to (magically drop out of the sky) arrive in the post or should I decide on a pattern for the current gorgeousness in easy reach? A bird in the hand and all that… I cast on Spring Thaw with the Starshine Angel 2 ply. I managed to keep track, even whilst making that apple pie, at least initially.

Row 16 K3 Purl to end K3… hang on this is a pattern row *unknits purls* I’ve already done that row.. Row 17 Why don’t I have the right number of sts? Oh Poop! I’ve already DONE that row… *checks properly* Row 21…. lalalalal.. hm mm this isn’t right.. why do I have  38 sts on this side of the centre and only 34 on the other side… *brain explodes* and frogging ensues.

Now, not only can’t I read myself, to tell that I am too tired for this lace malarky, but I am not familiar enough with this pattern to read back along my knitting and spot where I went wrong, or to read it as I am going and spot mistakes as they happen. The first wee bit is far too early to put in a lifeline.. and something else, I really need to mark off rows as I go. Lessons hopefully learned.

Tomorrow, well, I have things to do that involve screwdrivers and Ikea, so we’ll see if knitting happens, but at least I have pie.

Goodness Gracious

Not so Long ago I posted some pictures of some Silk Garden. I loved it on the ball, but hated the knitted fabric it made.

You will also recall that I was using my Aran wt Heb to knit a Katarina

I liked it knit, but the fabric was really dense and I wasn’t convinced that it was right for a Katarina. I was poking about on Ravelry to see if I could either find my Silk Garden colourway knit into something nice, or something I could knit with it that might look nice. I went through pages and pages and the only things that really caught my eye were the ones that used Noro and a plain yarn. My head went in to Overdrive. On Wednesday morning I cast on the basic chunky cardigan from Knitting Noro using the Silk Garden and the Heb, alternating 2 rows of each.

By Wednesday evening I had the back and one front completed. I cast on the second front, but decided bed was the best option. By Thursday evening I had the other front finished, and both sleeves. Today (Friday) I sewed it all up, knitted the neck and front welts and then went shopping for buttons. Having blocked it gently with the iron, I sewed on buttons and put it on. All done..

The fact that I made a garment, ball to back, in less than 3 days is pretty amazing for me, but that it took so little yarn – 9x50g balls – is MORE amazing. I still have 350g of each yarn left, more than enough to knit something else.

*plots*