On closer inspection...

I'm pushing on with Beatriz. This morning I got to the top of the arm and looked at the sleeve cap shaping.

Hang on, that is weird.

The pattern says that for my size I should end the sleeve on row 6 of the pattern. But it said that I should end the body on row 10. No matchy! And I checked on the picture. It is specifically designed not to match up the pattern between the sleeves and the body. Isn't that, well, unusual to say the least?

But then, as I peered at the picture I noticed something else. On the stitch pattern. Isn't that a row of purl bumps just under the row of eyelet holes?


Why yes it is. And did I do that? No, I don't like patterns that are written out row by row so I kind of skimmed it and kind of eyeballed it and kind of ended up with a different design.

Ah well, I've done the body and one arm. I'm not backing out now!

long, thin, curved shawl thing

I don't know whether you remember me blogging about my pleated wrap and mentioning that it wasn't the shape that I thought it was. It is really just a wide scarf. In my mind it was a narrow moon shape which curved towards pointed ends. It seems there was a real-world wrap and a wrap of my dreams.

Well, I can now announce that I have found the wrap of my dreams. This is what I was imagining:


It is by Ysolda, is published in the latest Yarn Forward magazine (only £4.50 I think) and is called 'Scroll Lace'.

I was quite impressed with Yarn Forward magazine. The only other copy I ever bought was Epsode One and it has come a long way since then. There was a good range of interesting designs for men, women, children, accessories, etc in a huge range of sizes. The technique articles were clear and well-illustrated, although it was a shame that the one on short-row bust shaping stopped short of actually telling you how to do it. The interview with Kelley Deal compared very favourably with a rather dull interview I read with her in the most recent Knit 1. I was very pleasantly surprised. I might buy it again.

mundane

I brought my camera into work today. I wanted to get some lens cleaner at lunchtime. I had to go and pick up a prescription instead. Mundane.

But, inspired by seeing Oxford on a girl in winter's blog when she visited for a day, I thought I'd take some snaps just to see my everyday things afresh.

This may not work but let's give it a try. Here's my walk back to work from the pharmacy:


Past Cardigan Street in Jericho


Past Freuds, a bar in a converted church

Past the old scout hut that seems disused and overgrown


Past the best bookshop in Oxford where everything is £2


Past the fairylights on Little Clarendon Street


Through the grave yard in the middle of the city

Past the Keble dinosaur


Past the post box (the V R at the top indicate Victoria Regina - it is quite old)


and back behind the scenes of the University...


Well, I enjoyed it. I might try it again some time...

Ishbel at Cornbury

In the end I decided to take Ishbel to Cornbury (a very disappointing music festival it must be said) and she was an excellent choice. Here she is 'in the field':

I realised I'd been talking about Ishbel as though everyone in the world knew what I was referring to. Just in case, here is the classic pattern-photo-and-your-materials shot:


So she's a shawl. But I decided not to make shawls after I realised that they really weren't the height of cool in the UK. But I've seen Ishbel (and some other shawls) worn a different way now. As a kind of bandit-style scarf with the triangular point at the front. I think this will be great to go with my winter coat (shown below) which has very open a v-necked at the front and prone to draughtiness. So I'm giving it a go.

The start of this project highlighted a problem I've had before. Has it ever bugged you that when you do yarn-overs between a knit and a purl they're a different size to the ones that fall between purls and knits? With Ishbel this means that all the yarn overs down the left are twice as big as the ones on the right. I couldn't believe it had to be this way.

So, I searched on Ravelry and, sure enough, it had bothered other people and they had found the answer, here. You can even up the yarn overs by doing one of them (either knit/purl or purl/knit) the 'wrong' way. The explanation on the site is excellent and I can't explain it any better and it has totally fixed the problem. Sadly you can't really see this in the unblocked version so you'll have to trust me. I was so delighted when I found out I frogged back to the beginning and reknit with even yarn overs.


The yarn is Alchemy Juniper and it is very nice yarn. It is soft and squishy and the colour is very rich. It is a semi-solid wine colour with tiny flecks of rust in; probably darker than shown above - more like the top picture.

There has been one join in the first ball of yarn which was kind of glued together leaving a little stiff bit in the yarn. I decided to just knit it in and hope it softens in the wash.


I don't know if it is the simple pattern, my new-found yarn-over delight or the lovely yarn but this is knitting up in a jiffy. I did a bit of knitting at the festival and an evening of getting on with it last night and already I've finished the large stockinette section. I'm planning to do the large stockinette area and small lace area (the pattern has two sizes) as I think this will make the most of my 400m or so of yarn.

I'm putting it side temporarily though as I need to get on with my Beatriz jumper that I was knitting befor emy holidays as it could languish if I don't plough on...

Finished (for now)

I finished the knitting on my pleated wrap this morning. Normally I'd wait until it were nicely finished and washed and such for a FO post but due to house-selling stuff I'm not sure when I'll have chance to lay it out to dry so here it is in an unfinished-finished state:

I think this is one of the love-em-or-hate-em projects. It is mostly simple garter stitch with only a little interest at the edges for a really long time. I'm glad I took a two week holiday part way through or I think I'd have grown to hate it and it would never have been finished. As it was, it was perfect knitting for a tired mind and I finished it just when I was beginning to flag.

It looks pretty scruffy at the moment with all the ends hanging out like a messy fringe, but I'm pleased with it all in all. I hope to wear it to my friend's wedding in August with the dress I wore for my wedding.

The shaping I attempted at the end where I increased the pleat size by one stitch every 6 repeat was not really hugely effective. If anything, I think it is largely invisible. I have since found a scarf pattern that does have that curved shape I was looking for. but more of that another day...

P.S. I just looked closely at these pictures and I think I've photographed the *wrong* side. Doh! Probably looks even better on the other side :)

Wedding movie

You're probably sooo not interested but I've scrubbed up the wedding pictures our friend took as best I possibly can and put the vaguely presentable ones in a little slideshow.





Edited to add: It should be about 20 seconds long...

Cast on for Cornbury

Another weekend, another music festival... although this one looks wetter than the last so we'll probably only go on Saturday.

Nevertheless it raises the question of what to take to knit in a field and provides the opportunity for me to assess what I'm up to...

Since I got back from New York I've been a bit jet-lag-and-back-to-work tired so the only thing I've knit on is my Debbie Bliss Pleated Wrap. It is slow going. The garter stitch means there's a lot of rows per inch and it is getting a little bit repetitive. I'm glad I had a break half way through the project or it might have driven me mad. I manage about 10cm each evening and it has to be 180cm in total. This is simple enough for festival knitting but as I'm about 125cm in, it is a bit bulky to take to a festival.


My other on-the-needles project is my Beatriz jumper. I just need to finish one side of the neckline and the arms. After the slightly asymmetrical neckline I managed to create on my spotty cardigan, I want to make sure I get this one right so I'm not going to work on it until it has my full wide-awake attention.


Which leave me with only one option really, to cast on for something new. Maybe something with one of my new holiday yarns. I wonder if I could start Ishbel as I'm sure the stocking stitch section must be easily memoried... or maybe I should do a hat so I don't have a third large projects on the go...

Post-holiday shopping (and the fallout)

So after I got back from my holiday with my failed Dolly project sitting unloved beside me on the sofa I had a fantastic idea. I might have failed at Dolly but thanks to the Kim Hargreaves recycling plan I could try again without actually having to knit all the damn 4 ply moss stitch again. I could knit Bay:


Same cardigan, larger gauge, more of the Denim that I enjoyed so much a few months ago. But I'd used all that Denim up. So I went to Black Sheep (just as bad for my stash as Kemps) and found Sirdar Indigo Pure Cotton Denim DK in ecru and dark blue for £1.24. 14 balls of dark blue fell into my online basket.


and while I was there I saw lovely, lovely caramel coloured Mirasol Sulka (60% merino, 20% alpaca and 20% silk) for £1.99. Three of them sneaked into the basket before I had chance to click the 'Pay Now' button.


and finally, I started worrying about using Malabrigo Sock for the Whisper Cardigan so I bought 2 skeins of Malabrigo Lace to do a 'muslin' of the pattern before using my holiday yarn. Here it is in Paris Night:
But as I uploaded the last little bit to Ravelry something terrible occurred. By heart started to beat a little faster, the lights turned red, the sound of a distant siren echoed from a farther room... Yes, the 300 ball stash limit has been breached.

So that's it. We're on stashdown from now. No fancy rules. Just a firm resolve to get back down to 200 balls by the end of the year.

knit, knit, knit...

Purl Soho shopping

After looking at the Koigu yarn (which I will now admit is a mustard yellow) and realising it could never be my Ishbel, I decided to find an alternative at Purl Soho. I went with this; Alchemy Juniper (merino sock yarn basically) in a shade called 'first crush'.

It is going to be my Project Spectrum knit for the next phase during July and August. The themes are red, metal, and fire. I think this is red enough...

There are over 450 yards here so I think I might be able to do a medium sized Ishbel. This yarn doesn't seem to be very popular. only 30 projects using it are on Ravelry. I don't know if that is because it is quite new or if the astonishingly high price is putting people off. I think it was $16 per skein. Gulp.

Also astoundingly expensive were these two skeins of Alchemy Temple which is a similar yarn in a light dk weight. The left skein is 'mica' and is greeny-grey-er than it looks in the picture. The one on the right is called 'pewter'. I have no idea what these will be. Probably something stripy. Slightly irritatingly the label reads both '128 yards' and '95m'. I'm guessing the first figure is true. Maybe the 95m is a colour code?


It all looks quite restrained doesn't it? although it cost over $60

Just 9 skeins of new yarn from my holidays. Well, that is only half the story (or less than half)... there's the third part of the trilogy; the yarn I bought when I got home!

Knitty City shopping

I had a couple of ideas in mind for what I wanted to buy at Knitty City.

I really didn't want to buy anything that was going to sit around my stash for years and I didn't want anything untested that might turn out to be a massive knit-fail. So I've played it safe by shopping for two of the most-knit patterns of recent months.

Two skeins of Malabrigo Sock in Eggplant (slightly greyer than it appears here) is going to be...


The Whisper Cardigan from Interweave Knits Spring 2009. Unbelievably I had to return one copy of this to the shelf in Knitty City because someone had STOLEN the Whisper cardigan pattern pages!!!!

And, as Ysolda was there, it would have seemed rude not to buy her little book...


and two skeins of Koigu to make an Ishbel shawl


Although I've changed my mind on that yarn a bit. I swear, hand on heart, that this yarn was olive green (suits me) in the shop. But when I got it out of the bag it turned mustard yellow (makes me look like a corpse). Testing has shown that under electric lighting it looks green but natural light makes it yellow. I'm now planning to save this for the yellow phase of Project Spectrum next year and I have another plan for Ishbel.

Oh, and an impulse buy; Malabrigo Worsted in bright blue. I have no idea what this is going to be but I love that blue...

Knowing when it is over...

My holiday is over - I'm back in work. And me and Dolly are through.

It all started promisingly. The moss stitch ruffle had no shaping and the pattern recommended needles in a size I owned in plastic (for the flight); seemed like the perfect travel knitting. So I decided to work the fronts and the back in one piece and cast on 400+ stitches on 2.75mm needles.


But oh those rows were long and oh they were boring and oh those needles didn't make life any easier. And I slogged and slogged and slogged along. And it didn't get any longer. Ever. Not perceptibly to the naked eye. And still I knit...

And I kept knitting and knitting. But when I got back from the States I decided to do what...? You know don't you? Yes, I thought I'd check my gauge.

Miles out.

I was getting 32 stitches/50 rows. No wonder the damn thing wasn't getting any longer.

I switched to 3mm addis, thinking that it might help but honestly I know deep down that this is too far gone. The change in gauge is going to be noticeable. I'd probably run out of yarn if I kept going. I'm going to have to frog.

I think we'd all like to think there's a lesson learnt here but I'll probably keep casting on without checking gauge in the future and I'll probably keep frogging. Hey ho!

Un-saving Sunday

So, after all that saving-up-for-holiday fuss. Here's the nonsense I ended up spending it on :)


I should probably mention my fondness for souvenirs now. Tacky and less tacky.

I particularly like souvenirs mugs so that I can be reminded of my holidays when drinking my morning coffee. These are a Strawberry Fields mug from Central Park, your classic I HEART NY mug and a MONK mug (one of my favourite TV shows).

I got the MONK mug from the NBC shop (or 'Experience' as I think they called it). I hadn't realised how many NBC shows I love. I got loads of Law & Order tat, a My Name is Earl xmas decoration, a House bag and pen, a Vandelay Industries tote from the Seinfeld section and a Chuck lanyard. I can't even pick a favourite from all this cool stuff!

At the MOMA gift shop I did just as much spending - an umbrella and fold-up bag that look black and grown-up on the outside but have a beautiful blue sky design inside. Ace! A book of photos that look like I hope my holiday photos turn out (if that makes sense). A double-helix DNA bracelet and a retractable tape-measure (for knitting purposes).

And various bits of nonsense from all over. LEGO models of the Empire State Building and the Guggenheim, various little useful tins to put things in, a couple of fridge magnets and a pencil with King Kong climbing the Empire State on the end...


Oh, and some clothes, and wool and stuff but I'll blog about the actual craft stuff during the week...

I have a lot of unpacking to do...

There's no place like home

Close your eye, tap your heels together three times...


Or if your ruby slippers don't work; get a super-early bus to JFK and a long flight back to the UK. See you when I'm safely back!

Last day

Our last 24 hours - time to wrap up a few last New York things we hadn't got round to yet.

Wholewheat blueberry pancakes at the Central Cafe next to Grand Central Station 'New York's Busiest and Best Breakfast'


The East Village with a very disappointingly SHUT Downtown Yarns :(
(It is a holiday weekend here in the US)



A few bits of Central Park including the Turtle Pond


A visit to Birdland to see the house Big Band and eat delicious southern fried chicken, mashed potatoes and collard greens.


And a final walk back to the hotel.


I'll miss you NYC!

Cloisters

Thank you so much for all your comments on my last post. It is lovely to have so many good wishes. I'm sure you'll all be pleased to hear the marriage is going well so far!

Yesterday we had a break from the city and took the A train wayyy up to Fort Tryon Park in Northern Manhattan to visit the Cloisters. They're an off-shoot of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that Yoel recommended. The buildings themselves are in the style of a medieval monastery and incorporate various doorways and stained glass from original buildings. There's a collection of medieval art - tapestries, statues, illuminated manuscripts...

The outside is impressive in itself
But once you're inside you can easily feel miles away in time and space

Sadly we missed walking round some of the gardens as it rained and rained nearly all day. Not just normal rain - monsoon rain! This is probably the prettiest museum cafe in the world where we ate lunch and watched the weather.


We waited out the worst of the rain (fortunately I had my knitting with me) and then got the subway back to town.

We got caught in another enormous downpour as we walked across Central Park but dried out as we walked round the Frick Collection (really good but no photography please!) and went home for dry clothes and shoes. Had a delicious meal at a nearby italian restaurant called Fagiolini which I heartily recommend.

Married!

Yesterday we got married. We rang our families, grabbed a quick breakfast and got the 6 subway down to City Hall.

Within an hour we'd queued up, paid, signed, agreed, exchanged rings and were married!

Afterwards we had lunch in Hell's Kitchen with our witnesses and then headed back to the hotel for more comfortable footwear. In the afternoon we did a spot of shopping. We went to Macy's and saw the world's first escalator and ate ice cream. American flavours - this is Elton John's own Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road flavour!


We walked past the New York Public Library and admire Patience and Fortitude the lions.


And on to the NBC gift shop where I spent a lot of dollars!

Now when I knit my left hand is slightly heavier:

Purl Soho

Yesterday we started with a walk around Greenwich Village and Soho. Fascinating area in many ways but I'll cut to the chase - 137 Sullivan St, home of Purl Soho.

It is super-cute from the outside with a little green bench so you can sit and admire your purchases...


Inside has to be the most beautiful yarn shop I've ever seen. It looks like a rainbow.


It is a great place for picking out a skein or two of a beautiful colour but it isn't a practical yarn store. In order to look as good as it does, all the useful information on the ball band is hidden away and you have to keep pulling skeins out.



If you want a super luxurious yarn treat (say, if you're on holiday) and you don't mind paying for it, this is a gorgeous place to visit and the staff were really friendly.

Just a couple of shops down, we stopped for lunch at Once Upon A Tart and I had the most delicious strawberry lemonade.


Delighted with my purchases (which I'm cruelly going to show you when I get home as I haven't got a lot of time for yarn photos), I took them on a trip round the Museum of Natural History, boating on the lake in Central Park and to Katz's Deli (the diner in When Harry Met Sally) for an enormous sandwich. Another great day!

Toasty

I may have been busy in New York yesterday on a boat trip to see the Statue of Liberty,


Visiting Ellis Island,


And the Whitney Museum,


But that didn't mean I had to miss the start of the Toast sale back in the UK! Hurrah for the internet!

Highest knitting in the world...

on a building... probably...

Facing my undeniable terror of heights I went up the Empire State Building yesterday and, just for you guys, I took my knitting with me. Here's the very tiny bit of progress I've made so far. It turns out that knitting 400+ rows of 4ply moss stitch is poor competition for the thrills and spills of the big apple. Who'd have thought!


Safely back on the ground again we walked down 5th Avenue and saw the Immigrants Day Parade. I took a lot of pictures but the best ones were of the paraders waiting in the side streets for their turn to join the procession...

After a quick lunch at Pax Whole Foods we walked uptown and stopped at the Kinokuniya Japanese book shop near Bryant Park. There's a whole craft section downstairs (as well as floors and floors of amazing Japanese stuff) and I wanted to pick up some knitting books. Unfortunately when I got there two people were already camped out in front of the knitting section, sitting on the ground and flicking through books. I would have asked them to move but astonishingly it turned out to by Ysolda and a friend (I know, what are the odds?) and I didn't want to look like a stalker. In the end I gave up waiting for them to move and bought some gorgeous sewing books instead.

Next stop was Central Park Zoo, just in time for Sea Lion feeding time. I took about 200 pictures. They're so cute!


Later it was feeding time for Mooncalfs and we took the subway to Chelsea for a great burgers and huge brownie sundae at Bette Davis' favourite diner, The Empire Diner. Very good iced tea too.

I'm in MOMA

I loved visiting MOMA yesterday. Loads of interesting and thought-provoking exhibitions in addition to the collection. And gift shop.

I got to be part of 'Measuring the Universe' by Roman Ondak. According to the MOMA website, 'Over the course of the exhibition, attendants mark Museum visitors' heights, first names, and date of the measurement on the gallery walls. Beginning as an empty white space, over time the gallery gradually accumulates the traces of thousands of people.' And here's my little trace:


So cool!

And just in case you thought the knitting content of this blog had dried up, look what I found - a knitted lamp!


After a delicious lunch in the cafe we walked up to the Guggenheim. They've got a big Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition on which was not the most interesting thing ever. It is very hard to make architectural plans engaging. Especially after the first few dozen. Well worth the trip just to see the building though:


We got back to the hotel just in time to miss a huge thunderstorm but the weather here changes so fast. After the lightning, rain, thunder, rain, rain, rain for about half an hour it totally cleared up and we spent the evening on a final bus tour. This one was at night and we left Times Square and spent two hours watching the sun go down, illuminating the skyscrapers and then seeing the lights of the city. Probably the most striking view was from Brooklyn after we drove over the Manhattan bridge.

Some of my pictures came out clearer than that but I loved the wiggly lights...

In which our batchelorette...

...goes to Knitty City.


I tell you about my travels yesterday only to excuse what is to follow. After another Starbucks breakfast we walked over to Times Square (and saw Tiger Woods!) then got on one of the tourist open-top buses and headed all round the downtown area. We finished around 1 somewhere in the theatre district and stopped at a nice restaurant where I had tuna sashimi salad and my first ever New York cheesecake. In the afternoon we took the uptown bus around the Upper West Side and through Harlem then back down 'museum mile' to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I don't like to miss a gift shop so we popped in but it was easy to resist. Next we walked through Central Park, past the Delacorte Theatre which was having a glamorous gala Shakespeare in the Park night. And on to Knitty City.

See, that whole paragraph is an excuse for how dishevelled and shiny I look in the next photo. Especially standing next to the incredibly lovely and friendly Rima.

I had the best time I think it is possible to have in a yarn shop. It was great to meet Rima and she was incredibly patient with me as I inspected everything in the entire shop (everything was new and unfamiliar- the only yarn I'd seen before was Rowan). Twice. Possibly three times before making a decision.

Ysolda did a short presentation and a Q&A which was really interesting, especially the bit where she spoke about knitting for your frame size rather than your bust size. She was kind enough to let me take a picture but somehow I managed to make it all blurry:

I did manage to focus on her knitted menagerie though...


After I'd finished shopping (only about $100 lighter which I thought was impressively restrained) we sat and knitted and chatted in the shop. It was just so cool; other shoppers and the staff all chatted to us too. I've barely spent any time with knitters in real life (and some of them knit in such a smooth and polished way - when I saw Rima's technique I almost had to put my knitting away!) so it was such a wonderful place to spend time.

At 8pm they closed and we said goodbye. MrMooncalf came and picked me up and we walked back to the hotel and stopped at this diner for really delicious pasta. We sat in the window and I felt like I was in a Hopper painting.


A brilliant evening and a really great day. It didn't even rain!

A couple of days on foot.

Apparently there is no better way to see New York than on foot.


After a Starbucks breakfast on Tuesday we headed north past the Chrysler building, Trump Towers, other huge huge huge buildings; first to the (closed) Museum of Modern Art, then up along 5th Avenue to Central Park.


I bought a great little New York notebook from a book stall on the street and we walked up through the park past a baroque ensemble and a jazz quartet, past Strawberry Fields and over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Big place the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Before we knew it it was closing time and they were throwing us out - before I'd even visited the gift shop! We walked back along 5th Avenue and stopped in the the Grand Central Market on the way home. Exhausted, we managed to walk round the corner onto East Avenue to a deli called Sarge's for dinner where much new food was eaten; chopped liver, matzo ball chicken soup and a burger with a pastrami topping. Now so full it was difficult to walk, we called it a day.

After a Dunkin Donuts breakfast (!) on Wednesday we decided to head south and go and register for a marriage license. We walked down Park Avenue to Union Square and stopped off at the market to check out the New Jersey strawberries and honey from NY roof garden bees.

Then there was a lot more south on Broadway with a quick stop off at the Strand Book store (18 miles of books!) before we hit the civic centre and could pop into the City Clerks' Office and pick up a marriage license.

Next, a hot dog lunch from the stall outside the Supreme Court (very exciting for a Law & Order fan), a wander over to the very underwhelming Seacourt area and some snaps of the Brooklyn Bridge. Next we headed up Bowery to the Lower East Side to follow a walk past Jewish delis, through Chinatown and into Little Italy before a huge rainstorm broke and we ran for the subway, back to Grand Central Station and some more snacks from Grand Central Market made a quick dinner.

Today, Thursday, we're taking the bus...

Longest day

Apparently Sunday was the longest day but my goodness, yesterday felt like it.

There was a lot of coffee, some new sunglasses and noodles at the airport.

A decent flight (I watched In The Loop which was OK) and a bit of knitting on Dolly as I got my needles past security!


Once we arrived in the US and got the OK from Homeland Security we made it through the worst traffic I have ever seen in my life to our hotel for a shower and unpacking. New York traffic is hair-raising!

Then a wander down Lexington Avenue, past Grand Central Station for a slice of pizza and some coffee to keep us awake until a reasonable bed time.

Jet lag still hasn't quite gone (I is about 6.30 am as I type) but I'm using the time to read the guidebook and make a plan!

11th Hour

Just got this finished in time. I've not even had time to decide if it works or not.


I still think the picot edge could have been a little bit shorter and it might have lain flatter.

But on the plus side I think the flappy sleeves look MUCH better than expected.

Apologies for the unmodelled shot. I didn't think it worth tempting fate by getting my chief photographer to take a snap. I'm not cursing the marriage for the sake of blogging.

I tried to take some mirror pictures but kindofafail:

See you in NYC!

New York Yarn "Hen Night"

As it is just MrMooncalf and I going to New York, the concept of a hen night is going to be tricky to pull off.

Still, I've arranged to meet Rima at Knitty City on Thursday 25th at 6pm. Ysolda Teague is going to be there and it is the yarn shop that nearly all of you recommended.

N.B. Ysolda is going to be there to do a signing or something. She's not coming to meet me :)

I think that if I call it a hen night I think it gives me carte blanche to go mad with the yarn shopping. I'm already making a list and checking it twice.

If anyone else is going to be there let me know (so I can make my plan seem more grandiose) or say hi if you see me.

I'm sorry there are no pictures in this post. Trust me, I'll make up for that when I get there!

Well, Hello!

It is nearly time. Only 4 more sleeps and I'll be on the way to the airport to fly to New York!

And so, the age-old question; what knitting should I take?

I like the idea of travelling with 4ply cotton (because it is light and because it washes easily if it gets dragged on the floor or wet or something).

I also like the idea of travelling with a project that doesn't involve too much concentrating, getting to the end of a row, counting etc as I don't want my holiday upset by dropped lace stitches and big pile of frogged yarn.

So this year, I think (and it is getting a bit late to change my mind) I'm going to make Dolly from Kim Hargreaves' Breeze in this rust-coloured Patons Cotton 4ply.

I'm not totally sure about the decision because:

1. I bought the yarn for 99p a ball in the Kemps sale and it therefore doesn't feel 'special'
2. I'm not totally sure about that peplum

But, it has the added advantage that the ruffly edge is knit on 2.5 mm needles and I have those in plastic. Current Heathrow security information doesn't explicitly preclude knitting needles any more but it seems sensible to be on the safe side. I don't have any wooden needles (well, I have 12mm ones which I use mainly for Buffy impressions) so I'll have to hope plastic works out.

For once I'm going on holiday to a place full of knitting shops so if the worst comes to the worst I can just buy some new needles in New York. Or a new project. Or a great big suitcase full of all those fancy American yarns!

Rosebud - you worried me!

As I've discussed before, I am very lazy about picking up stitches. I pretty much never count how many I'm picking up. But I really wanted Rosebud to work out perfectly so I made a vague attempt to pick up the number shown in the pattern. Something like 3 billion. It seemed. Took about an hour.

Then I worked the picot edging on these three billion stitches. Took about two hours.

Then I carefully sewed down each of the three billion live stitches with one long thread, sewing each loop to the 'purl bump' created by picking up the stitches. Took, literally, about three hours.

So now it is about 6pm on Sunday, the sunshine has cooled and the smell of barbecues is wafting in on the evening breeze and in front of me I have one great big ugly blob of knitting.

There are so many stitches in this picot edge that it ripples wildly. I only wish I'd taken a picture but my heart was crushed. So much work. So failed.

Only one last shred of hope remains. Maybe it'll block out. It doesn't seem likely. Into the washing machine it goes, a sickening wait and then it is pinned out with desperate force onto my yoga mat. And look...

Oh my good God it worked! It really worked!

The picot edge is neat and flat:


You can (I think) see the pre-blocked and post-blocked difference in the picture. On the left is the blocked body and on the right, a sleeve.

So, just got to block the sleeves, seam them and sew them in now. Nearly there...

Simply frilling

This is the Pleated Wrap from the most recent Debbie Bliss magazine.

I think this magazine is the best new publication for knitters. It is only a few quid and you get a lot of patterns and not too much filler. Most of the designs have been previously published in Debbie Bliss books which makes me wonder about the longevity of the model - surely Debbie Bliss isn't going to be able to produce 30 or so new patterns for each edition once she's run out of back-catalogue to reprint? I like the consistency of the designs and the photography is attractive. There's a good mix of adult garments, designs for the home and little things for children. There have even been a couple of interesting designs for men. All in all, I'm a fan.


The Pleated Wrap is a new design from Issue 2 i.e. it hasn't been published elsewhere before. It seems to have been a big hit so far with nearly 100 Ravelry projects. It is a very simple garter stitch, well, scarf really, with a garter rib border that incorporated a few short rows to give the edging a little frilliness. Like the best Debbie Bliss patterns, it is very simple but looks very classic.
Still, I've made a couple of mods. Sometimes I earmark a pattern and think about it idly until I get around to making it. When I finally get around to it and look at the pattern I find that is isn't quite what I remembered. My brain has evolved it into something else while I've not been paying attention. With this wrap, the version in my head was wider than the magazine version with a curve along the pleated edge. The magazine version is only 11 inches wide and has no curve.

I decided to cast on more stitches (an extra 20) and to make the pleated edge appear to curve by making the pleats narrow at the ends. the first 6 pleats are just 10 stitches wide, the next 6 are 11, then 12 and finally the majority of the wrap will have a 13 stitch edging. I'll reverse the pattern at the other end to balance it out. I'm not sure if it will be noticeable or not when I am wearing it but you can see it when it is flat:
Fingers crossed!

Quarterly report (early) - Q2

Keen observers will notice it is a wee bit too early in the month for an end-of-quarter-two-report.

But I'll be on holiday at the end of the month and I think the Quarterly Report is a very useful way of keeping track so I'm writing up what's happened so far.

So, firstly - Stash:


This looks like a lot less yarn than I bought last quarter. It is. I bought an astonishing amount of yarn in Q1. Over 175 balls.

This quarter I bought just 89 which is a huge decrease and I think it is probably about stash-neutral as I did quite a lot of knitting:

Spotty (8 balls), Georgie (20), Rosebud (6), Acorn (1), Daisy (9), Raspy (13), Ravenscar (13), Walt (1) = 58

Hmm, well it felt like stash neutral. I suppose not.

You'll notice I've included Rosebud in the FO section even though I haven't posted pictures yet. Well, I hope to have news on that front soon...

In the unfinished category are Beatriz and two Rowan Denim projects I just can't seem to make myself finish. Maybe next quarter..?

Oh, and one very very new project that I just started last night...


And finally (and especially to strengthen my resolve in the face of bargains at Kemps) here are Q1's acquisitions with those I've used obscured behind big red presents. Over 100 balls left... probably not time to go shopping yet...

Rosebuds

I meant to spend the day finishing my Rosebud cardigan for my wedding but, as things turned out, I've been tidying the house for viewings. I am not naturally very tidy. At all.

Instead I've found some other pretty roses to show you. These ones from the garden:


And these ones on a bag I bought a couple of weeks ago when I met up with Lien. This ridiculously pink satin super-feminine bag is not exactly my usual style. I do quite love it though. Even when I realised that nobody else will know that it matches my cardigan in theme even if the colour is wildly different...


Sometimes I forget that normal people's jumpers don't have names!