My Raid on the Palace

This weekend has heralded the knitting equivalent of Christmas, with the Knitting and Stitching show coming to Alexandra Palace. I’d been looking forward to the event all year and even been saving a little stash of pennies so I could guarantee yarn-y purchases no matter what my financial situation at the time. Monday night brought the smashing of the money box, and a sense of unchecked glee at the healthy little sum inside.

Come Saturday, things didn’t seem so exciting anymore. Maybe because I had a ‘game plan’ of things that I hoped to get (none of which I could seem to find), or because as Eleanor says there was more ’sewing’ this time, or maybe because I had to wait so long in the queue (which I swear wasn’t there last time!) this year I just felt a bit cheated by the lack of ‘proper’ yarn-y goodness.

But don’t let that make you think that I saved my pennies and came away with nothing! Nope, here is a list of all the yummy stuff that I did manage to find, even if it was on the back up plan list.

• 2x Colinette Jitterbug
• 1x Manos Silk Blend
• 8x Colinette Parisienne (plus 3 contrast colours)
• 2x Twilleys Freedom wool
• 1x The Natural Dye Studio’s Cloud
• 1x Unknown skein of black mohair with a sparkly pink strand running though it
• 1x Scarf kit
• 1x Beret kit
• 1x Sock yarn

Here’s a couple of my faves:

And the best part is that I have a plan for all of these yarns, so they won’t just sit in the stash until next year until I find a suitable project. Admittedly they might sit in the stash until next year because I just can’t knit them fast enough!

So my raid on the palace did bring some treasures, but next time I’m considering giving it a miss. Maybe I’ll save next years’ money box for an Internet spree : )

Oneness

So I’ve noticed as of late that I’ve cast on a lot of projects that are meant to be in pairs only to find that they remain single for the time being. The ‘black socks’ (as they shall be referred to until presented) for instance. Is it because I tried to make one many moons ago, only to have to frog back after a needle malfunction? Or the Ballet School Dropout socks which are the more successful cousin of an earlier model which had to be abandoned during production? Perhaps it comes down to not wanting to have to work the same pattern twice, even though this time around they’ll be better than before? Either way both socks are currently without a partner, and getting terribly lonely.

the solitary sock

And the oneness isn’t just consigned to socks, it’s affecting the mitten world too. Having made one (wicked!) Peekaboo Mitten did I cast on for the second straight away? No, of course I didn’t. Instead I moved on to another project and having finished (the first part of) that, I’m contemplating the next project I can cast on.

the melancholy mitten

Every night I look through my knitting journal, at the list of all the things I want to make and seem to be surprised that I haven’t finished anything to be able to cross it off my list yet. ‘Well really,’ I tell myself ‘What am I supposed to expect if I start projects here there and everywhere?!’‘

Today, perhaps as a way to help my organisation along some ways I pulled out my knitting and crochet magazines and scoured them for patterns that I planned to make from them. I then entered the name of the pattern, the magazine it came from and the yarn required to make it into my journal. I am quite surprised to say that there are at least 57 patterns that I’m wanting to make from those magazines covered so far (and that’s not including potential items I may knit in the future if I hear someones having a baby). Imagine how long it would take to knit all that. Then add to that all the projects I’ve downloaded into my Ravelry library. Then add that to all the patterns out there that I haven’t come across yet. Seriously God, just 24 hours in a day?! When are we supposed to fit it all in?! Which kind of brings me back to ‘oneness’. If we only get one shot at this lifetime, I’ve got a lot of knitting to do!

I made it!

Literally!

Ravelympic Haruha Scarf

So admittedly this is a picture of my scarf still in it’s blocking stages, but I just wanted to show off my completed Ravelympics project to the world, along with my medals.

Not only did I manage to finish, but I did it with time to spare after crossing the finish line on 21August. This is a great achievement I reckon and I feel like I did myself proud (I wonder if Olympians feel the same way?).

I loved taking part in this ‘competition’ (for want of a better word. It was the taking part that we did it for. Well that and an awesome jpeg!), but I wouldn’t want to knit all of my projects this way as I feel like I missed out on the actual knitting part of it.

Now that the games are over I’ve gone back to my other WIPs and managed to complete my Jaywalker socks (woohoo!), and have even made a few more triangles for my baby blanket (not that it’s anywhere near finished yet).

I’m going to be going to I Knit day at the end of the week, one of the rewards (along with Ally Pally!) I would get for burning up my stash, but part of me just wants to carry on burning up what I already have, instead of adding more yarn to my collection. However that part is greatly outweighed by the part of me that wants to go, so I’m getting all excited instead. I hope I’ll be sensible about what I get this time though, as I’ve still got a few bits from my last venture that are still unsure of their destiny.

I’ve also managed to use up a small amount of yarn that’s been sitting in my stash since forever too recently, as part of a gift for a birthday. I’m pretty sure that yarn might have been from one of the first projects I ever made (not including the projects made from the yarn that came with my Klutz book). It makes me all nostalgic and annoyed at the same time, as the yarn was used for a scarf which came out too short, and has now visible (to me) mistakes on it. I don’t want to chuck it out though (I’m far too sentimental it seems!), so it will sit in my stash until it is all used up into something else.

Anyway, on with the knitting and thanks for reading!

Ravelympic entry

So to mark the 2008 Olympics, some lovely people on Ravelry teamed up to conjure up the Ravelympics.

The rules: To start and finish a knitted item during the summer games. The only condition is that the project needs to be something that will challenge you (it’s not really that big a deal if it’s just something you can do in an afternoon in front of the TV).

I’m currently competing with Team S&B London in the Laceweight Long Jump and the Scarf Stroke with my project the Haruha Scarf. Only 2 days into the games, and I’m quite proud of how much I’ve completed so far! It currently measures 15 inches unstretched (and I think it will need a severe blocking when I’m done knitting).

Which brings me to blocking wires. Why are they so expensive and obscure to find?! I’ve currently been using the ’stretch string’ method, but I find that it tends to come ‘in’ at the middle of the pieces needing blocking which can only be remedied by placing a pin to get it back in place, therefore creating a scallop which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place. I’ve searched around for some welding rods, which are considerably cheaper, but not managed to find any at the hardware stores. If you’re in the market to donate any blocking wires get in touch! (although I don’t recall seeing any blue moons lately….)

I’ll be off at my festival (FINALLY) in a few days, so I don’t expect I’ll be able to post for a while, but I hope the next time might show me at the knitted ‘finish line’ with my scarf held high! Until then thanks for reading!

Industry

It’s been a long couple of months at Alterknit HQ with knitting spells arriving and disappearing as quickly as the sunshine in Wimbledon inspired weather. My job’s been making me blue lately and I’ve found myself drowning my sorrows in rows and rows of knitting (far better than rows and rows of something else).

I finally came back to my sweater, after a prolonged absence. Math, is seems, is something I will try to avoid at all costs. But I pushed through and have finally managed to complete the front and back pieces. I’m especially proud of the shape of the vee neck, as I wasn’t sure it would end up the way I had hoped. Admittedly, I’m not sure this is exactly what I had hoped for, but if it wasn’t then I must have been wrong!

The 'vee'

Now if  could only be bothered to work out the sleeves….

Next up on the completed projects list is my North Star Tam, designed by Donna Druchunas. I love it so much. I consider this to be another step in my journey to become a Master Knitter, as I had to learn how to read lace charts. Once I worked out how it’s possible for you to still have the same amount of boxes on the chart representing the stitches, the little light bulb of clarity shone above my head, like the North Star itself Incidentally, if you’re new to charts, the Arctic Lace book is awesome.

I don’t have any quivut, nor do I think I’d be able to afford any any time soon (what with not being paid!) so I used one of my delightful balls of Habu Silk Mohair, that had previously lied to me about it’s yardage. I think it turned out really well.

North Star Tam

I also found out that using the regular bind off method is just not working out for me. I’ve tried using larger needles, trying to ‘loosely’ bind off but it’s just not happening. Lucky for me then that I found out about Cat Bordhi’s ‘Stretchy Cast Off’. It takes longer than the regular bind off (and I’m pretty sure it uses much more yarn), but I luffs it and it has become my saving grace on more than this tam.

There’s been a few more projects on the go but I think I’ll save those to write about another time. Until then thanks for reading!

Burn Baby, Burn!

I just wanted to write an entry because I feel like I’ve made another mini break-through with my stash busting. Woohoo!

I made some baby booties recently, just to use up some of my leftover Rowan Big Wool, and just a few days later found out that there had been a new addition to the family! So I got all excited at the prospect of sending them off, when I also found out that said bambino also had a 2 year old brother. Now anyone who knows anything about small children knows that you don’t gift a new baby, and leave out the sibling unless you want a fit of jealousy and Freudian angst to come out of it. Or at least that’s what I told myself as an excuse to make another knitted gift

I made a hat out of some yarn that had been leftover from a (disastrous) jumper of mine (seriously, if you still have a whole ball of yarn left over when you finish, you must have made a mistake somewhere!). It nearly went all wrong when I got inches and cm confused and started a hat that wouldn’t fit a cherry let alone a small toddlers head, but luckily my brain kicked in around that time and I sorted it out before I embarrassed myself further.

I’ve also been successful in passing on some yarn that’s been in my stash since I first got started. Before I worked out the difference between DK and Aran, I bought some yarn to make a(nother disastrous) jumper, but fortunately I realised my mistake before I got too involved. It did mean the yarn was lonely while I tried to work out what to do with it. Ultimately I decided I couldn’t give it the love it needed, so sent it on to a lovely lady in India and asked that she pass the good karma on.

So, while I myself have nothing to show for my efforts, my stash is a few 100g lighter than 2 weeks ago. Yay stash busting!

Thanks for reading!

What doesn’t kill you only slows you down

Lots of people have been asking how my jumper’s been coming along, so I thought I’d give a brief update. It hasn’t really progressed too far because of the story I will tell you now.

After Christmas, due to my hinting not quite working out as I’d hoped, I placed an order with Rowan for one years membership. To sweeten the deal, Rowan were giving away a free project kit, which looked pretty cool too. So I remember getting to the final stages of my order and being asked to select a colour. The colour choices were red, white, blue and purple. I didn’t much like the white or the blue, so I was obviously left with the choice of red or purple. Here’s where it gets hazy, did I order the purple, like I think I did OR did I order the red because I thought it would be a lipstick red, rather than the rusty red that came in the post? Who knows, all I know is that I hated the rusty red and my invoice didn’t specify what choice exactly I had made.

Despite this, I thought I’d push on and make the project. I thought I’d go for the shawl option, thinking ‘Someone’s bound to like it if I make it, and what the hey, it’s free right?’ Except, I’ve found if I hate the yarn for a project, I’m just not going to make an effort to get the pattern right. 2.25 balls of the hideous yarn in, I see it, the completely impossible to ignore mistake. Now the dilemma, do I keep going and hope no one notices the mistake with gleaming neon lights around it or pull the needle out and try and fix it? I’d come so far. If I carried on, I’d never wear the shawl, so how could I expect anyone to love it as a present? So I pulled the needle out, frogged back and it all went pear shaped. My attempts to catch the stitches failed and the lace started to come apart before my eyes. Nooooo! I’d spent so much time on this bloody thing and now it refused to be saved!

So I frogged it. All 2.25 balls worth of knitting that I’d hated every minute of. Then I felt a pang of sorrow for my jumper, left neglected because I didn’t want to make a mistake from lack of concentration. I immediately searched online for someone looking for the yarn in question and offered it up to them. This supports my theory of ‘deny, deny, deny’. If it doesn’t work out, hide all evidence you tried.

On the plus side the lack of the evil project and yarn means that I’ll be able to work on my jumper. And I’m taking a lot more care with this one.

Seeds of Change

What do you think of ‘Seeds of Change’ as a name for my sweater pattern? I thought it had a nice ring to it firstly, because of the autumn orange colour of my yarn, which makes me think of ‘changing seasons,’ second, because it’s a sort of play on the fact that I’m using a seed stitch border and finally because if it works out well, I hope it’s the first of many patterns to come.

Here’s a pic I took of it in it’s early stages…

I love it so much I can’t stop wanting to work on it! I only stopped last night because my wrist started making that weird clicky sound again, that makes me think it’s either going to snap or solidify so I can never knit again! I consider that reason enough to take a break.

I have to admit though that it wasn’t all plain sailing from the word go. I cast on and knit about 11 rows before I realised that something was VERY wrong. It seems that when I knit my gauge swatch, I had a different tension to when I was making the actual jumper. I was only about a stitch off (curse those fractions of stitches!) but it was clearly enough to mess up my calculations. Anyway, I re-measured and re-jigged and it seems to working out well now.

I am still a little worried though about whether my waist shaping is going to end up in the right place, haha! According to the schematics it should be ok, but when I hold it up next to me, things seem a little off. I’m hoping that it’s more to do with the fact that it’s on a straight needle, and that the edges keep curling in than because it’s actually wrong.

I’m also not sure what I want to do with the neck. First I was going to go with crew, but then decided that the yarn didn’t really suit that plan, so I agreed on a vee. (Yes I had an extensive debate with myself in my head. No I don’t consider myself nuts. Yet.) Now though, I feel myself leaning towards a slash neck. I kind of don’t want to go with a slash neck, because my books don’t really offer any advice on how to proceed with them, but at the same time, it’s not like there’s much shaping or anything involved with them! I think I just see mself as binding off too early and messing it up. And while many a lesson can be learnt from messing up, I don’t want it to happen this time, the yarn is just too nice.

Anyway, that’s all for now, but I hope to keep updating soon. Thanks for reading!

I’m Designer!

A while back I managed to get in on a destash of some Artfibres Nirvana in colour number 7 (a rusty , autumn orange). I’m not really sure what possessed me to buy it, whether it was the artful shot of the 3 cones next to a flower pot or just the thought that it was a silk/cashmere blend at an irresistible price, but I had to have it.

When I pulled it out of it’s protective plastic baggy it felt just as delicious as it looked. And it was MINE! The only problem was, I had no idea what I was going to make with it. I searched all over Ravelry, and on a couple of occasions nearly came close. I considered making Green Gable by Zephyr Style, but there seemed something intrinsically wrong about making it in orange.

So then I hit upon my plan. I would design my own sweater! I made a gauge swatch (I know! Me!). I trawled through the guidance notes in Ann Budd’s ‘Handy Book of Sweater Patterns‘ and Stephanie Japel’s ‘Fitted Knits‘. Last night was a frenzy of measuring and calculating and then asking stupid questions like “‘Circumfrence’ is the whole way around a circle, isn’t it?”

Finally, I think I have it. The tentative beginnings of my very own sweater pattern. To an outsider it can only resemble the scrawlings of a mad woman, but to me, it’s a taste of things to come. I hope like crazy that it will turn out the way I see it in my head, that I’ve interpreted the advice in my books correctly, that there won’t be too many froggings and that finally when it’s all done, that it fits!

I feel like I’m standing on the edge of something amazing and I’m giddy with excitement.

Tonight the knitting begins!

Extended edition

It’s nearly April and my draft entry has become irrelevant since I saved it. Perhaps this blog was in fact meant to be monthly?

I’ve managed to squeeze a lot of knitting in lately. I’m not sure if that means I’ve been hiding away from the outside world more, or if the grim weather has just been the perfect opportunity to hide away with a pair of needles and yummy yarn.  Either way, there’s lots of new projects to see and read about.

One of the first is my 1930’s style sweater. I’m not sure how true it is to the original pattern, there wasn’t a photo, only an artist’s impression. I made some changes to the  pattern because I thought using 10mm needles would result in a fabric the was too loose, even on 8mm needles it still seems a bit floppy.

I like it mostly, but I think I made a mistake with the crochet edge. The pattern didn’t specify the hook size needed and I think I used 6mm. In hind sight I think I should have just gone with 8mm like the main body. I thought about redoing it, but I don’t have enough yarn and it doesn’t look so bad.

I finally finished up the black beaded scarf I’ve been working on seemingly forever. I decided in the end to call that project ‘Sloth’. It took so long, and I spent ages trying to avoid working on it, hence ‘Sloth’.

I made my cousin socks for her upcoming birthday and for the Selfish Knitters KAL on Ravelry. I love the colours in this but if you look closely you can see that the socks are fraternal twins only, rather than identical. (which is why I only took a photo of one!). It also meant I got to use up some of the oldest sock yarn in my stash

I did ruin my yarn diet a little though by buying some Noro yarn to make what I have dubbed ‘Ponchirto’. The yarn didn’t stay in my stash long, I finished the project the same weekend I bought it, but I’m still kind of annoyed that I couldn’t stick it out. But anyway, the pattern was for ‘Ponchette’ by Bonnie Knits, but I figured it would kind of make a cool skirt too. (Poncho + Skirt [Ponchskirto] = Ponchirto!).

 

I learnt how to do Purl long-tail cast on for this. I didn’t expect it to have made a big difference but it was a really good result. I figure I could take this with me when I go camping. I bet it would make a good pillow as well as keeping me snug when I’m chillin’ (no pun intended) in the evenings.

Speaking of camping, I finally bought my sleeping bag. It’s so exciting, I’ve never had one before so I had to try it out as soon as I could. I could fit about 3 of me in it but I still think it’s great! Needs a pillow though

Next a tale of woe. My ‘Scat’ that I made with my Christmas yarn was dismantled to make way for an alternative project. Too many people laughed at it and I lost the confidence to wear it anymore

All is not lost though. I kept the pom poms and made a pair of Super-Comfy Slippers instead. I like them a lot and think they’re much nicer than my store bought pair which only make my feet feel sticky and not necessarily warm (eughh). I forget I’m wearing them after a while too.

(Do you like my socks? I know it seems like I have a pink stripe obsession with this pic but it was just coincidence)

I’ve made some progress with my baby blanket too. It’s plodding along, I’m pretty sure that years from now when it’s done there’ll be a little bambino to gift it to.

Finally, I cast on for Wisp. I got a bit bored of my Kool Aid dyed shawl and Wisp is so easy to memorise. It’s my ‘Sheffield yarn’ and I’m really pleased with the way it’s worked in this pattern. I’m actually trying to talk myself out of buying any more Kidsilk as I’ve got plenty of lace weight to get rid of already.

I think the yarn and pattern complement each other really well in this project. I’m hoping to get some shell buttons in purple to finish it off. I even found some crushed velvet ribbon too that I can use to make the ‘hood’.

I’m looking forward to starting up some new projects too, I’ve got so many plans for the rest of my stash, it seems almost cruel that I can’t knit any faster.

I hope this entry makes up for the lack of news for a while but thanks for reading and hope you’re back soon.