Sunday 27 January 2013

A productive week!

Had a good week, this knitting to blog deadline suits me well, plus not casting on some thing new is reason to knit faster!

Started off the week by blocking my Hypernova shawl I finished last week


I didn't pin it out along its entire length, just did the flared ends and its come out really nice, again, didn't take long once I set to it!

Next I set about finishing my trout river jumper from knitty, a cute pattern with detachable arms, so you can have both a vest and a jumper, and I added a hood to the original pattern as I felt it needed it! The coloured edges are my own handspun yarn which was nice to include!


Daft thing about it was tho, that all I had left to do on it was the top bit of one arm and weave in some ends, its been lying around for all this time and it took me two evenings to finish. Its daft!

Next I focused on a sock I've needed to make to complete a pair, so the rest of the week was taken up by that. 
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Not bad at all! I picked up my pooling shawl to be going on with, I did try and find the other socks I have to finish but they've been put away some where and I'm not sure where! They'll turn up.. I hope! I may tackle my glow gloves, if I'm feeling brave tho!

Slight confession tho, I have cast on some thing new, but its a crochet baby hat and in all honesty I'll prob have it finished in the next few hours, I'm reverse engineering a hat my Mum (Hi Mum!) made for Immy, whos Immy? Oh yeah this is Immy! My 7mth old nutter, in her baby sophisticate!


Alot can happen when you don't blog! Any way, yes, my mum made her a really cute crochet hat, using little treble clusters, and I found some yarn in my stash today, thinner than the one my mum used and I'm attempting to recreate the pattern (adjusted for different yarn). I'm not sure if my mum used a pattern originally or just made it up, and I know I could just ask her, but I was just in that mood to do some thing different, and I may even write up the pattern too as I'm sure I've not seen one like it on rav, its one I reach for to put on her in all this cold weather, people have even asked me where I got it from, so it can't be bad! We'll see!

Sunday 20 January 2013

Nothing says knit faster like a looming deadline!

Beginning to think this post every Sunday thing was a good idea, it's forcing me to knit some thing so I don't miss my spot!
This week I mostly knitted my hypernova scarf, one of the few things I've declared wollmeise worthy! I had been about half way done at the start of the week but cast off late last night (photo to follow, I procrastinated all day, blame baby..) and hope to get it blocked at some point this week, can't be bad!
Took the decision to frog another project as well, I'm being realistic in what I'm actually going to finish, and whilst I loved how it was going (convertible from knitty in malabrigo) I just couldn't see my self actually using the shawl properly once it's done. I use my ordinary shawls, gloves, socks yet but this one was meant to be worn in lots of different ways and what ever I might have had a vision of when I started it, it's not the same one I have now! So it's now several balls of yarn again, more stash hehe
My wip list is starting to look more normal! I've a few projects I don't mind being long term, such as my hexipuffs or my crochet blanket, but every thing else I'm determined to get done, next on my hit list is a sock and a sleeve, sleeve first, I could probably get that done this evening if I stop fading around on here! Bests get on!

Sunday 13 January 2013

Thingies completed!

Well one week in to my must complete every thing campaign has gone well!
After my blog post last week, I decided to tidy up my corner, yet again! I put alot of yarn away, bagged up all my wip properly, and sorted my patterns out.
I rescued three wip from the wicker basket, one shawl, one hooded scarf (which had been intended as a new pattern..) and a circle cardigan for me.

The shawl was my memories of spring shawl that has been on the go for nearly two years, but I was finding the pattern tough going, not because it was overly difficult, it was the fact it has two stitch patterns of different counts running concurrently and I was finding it hard to keep both tracked, I usually make marks on a piece of paper but it was just doing nothing for me, so I made the decision to frog what I'd done, I wasn't even half way finished, so no big loss!

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Washed and reskeined the yarn (it was one of those preknitted blanks) so its all ready to go for a new pattern, some day!

The hooded scarf, I had intented on making a new pattern, with some yarn I bought from aldi, but at some point I lost my focus and it lived in my basket for a while, didn't even count it as one of my wip, as I'd forgotten it was there! I was going to frog it back to salvedge the yarn but decided the length I had knitted before the hood increases would still make a good cowl, so sat on my kitchen floor (!) I ripped it back, returned stitches to a needle, bound it off and made a cute cowl for Neala!


That worked out better than expected! (Excuse the xbox controller, I had to interrupt minecraft..)

So on to the cardigan, I bought the yarn for this from Cold Springs mill in Yorkshire, I had gone hoping to get some thing better, but arrived to find lots of bog standard yarn, was slightly disappointed, but not wanting to go home empty handed I bought some bulky yarn in a colour I liked that reminded me of James C Brett marble chunky (still don't know what it is, but its so close feeling wise to marble chunky, it might as well be!), so bought it and immediately cast on for this when I got home, I did work on it rather diligently for a long while but it got lost in the bottom of my box, never to be worked on for months, when I dug it out, I looked at completed versions of the pattern on Rav and noticed it looked rather fab as a short sleeve, and when I measured it up, it was close to being actually finished, so with the addition of short sleeves, I cracked on and got it finished! 

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Don't think its some thing I'll wear out of the house, and it could still do with a soak and pulling in to shape, but its great for lounging on the couch, very snug! Just glad I found the inspiration to carry on with it! Still a lot of the yarn left too, so all in all, not a bad yarn trip!

Lanesplitter has returned to my hands for the time being, its coming along nicely, just wondering if I should tackle some thing smaller (I've got some socks and a glove waiting) instead of getting bigger stuff done. Not that it matters, but my lanesplitter is good for tv watching as its dead easy to rattle off, I've got a glove to do that are slightly more (read as really really more) complicated, should really thinking about doing that too!

Till next week..


Sunday 6 January 2013

2013 Starting as I mean to go on!

So it's been two years since I made a blog post, hmm not really good, doubt any one will catch this post but hey, I decided it can help me in my mission to finish projects I've actually started so I can knit more stuff I want to.
My wip list is reaching epic proportions, I've single socks, half made blankets, short scarves and other things that if I spent just some of my time on (instead of browsing ravelry all day..) I could get them finished. But I don't, I browse all the stuff I,d love to make, dream about yarn I could use to make them, and I either cave in and cast on some thing new, or forget all my plans on what to knit! It's not like I don't want to finish my items, I do, I just lack incentive.
So, new year, new start. Blog, once a week, Sunday is good, to talk about what I've done this week, and if I force my self to blog, I've got to do some thing during the week to show off right? Well it's a plan....

I've currently got 15 things to finish. That includes 3 I've not listed on rav, and my hexipuff blanket which is a long term thing any way which I shouldn't be too hard on my self about, but you know, getting mini skeins for it every month and not knitting them is a problem too!


My current project is one I've not out on rav, it's a lane splitter skirt from knitty, cast on at a whim, well not so much a whim, I actually unravelled my noro jumper that I don't wear at all to do it, as I thought I'd wear this skirt more, I don't think I'll have quite enough yarn to finish it from what I got from my jumper, but the colourway is still out there, and it's noro, so dye lots.. No one will notice! Good chance I'll stop knitting this when I run out of yarn as I'll stall on buying more, but if I get a good way in to it, its a good excuse to keep going!


So that's me for this week, let's see if I can keep this up!