Knit one, read two

… a little silliness must fall.

A very busy and stressful two weeks degenerated recently into this:

Steven and I bought a new dining table and had been discussing what we should put on it that would look nice and stop us from using it as a dumping ground for junk. Steven thought that we should put out my cake stand and buy some knitted cupcakes from All the Fun of the Fair in London for the top. Several episodes of Battlestar Galactica and some stash yarn later, we had this:

The ghosts in the first picture are a salt and pepper shaker that I’ve had for ages but one of them had broken one of its arms, making it very difficult for them to hug (or attack huge cupcakes!). Fortunately, Steven had recently glued it back together.

The single cupcake is a little lonely on its own so I’ve already cast on for the next!

My Sahara jumper is finally finished! Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take any pictures of it until the weekend so you’ll have to make do with the last in-progress picture that I have.

This was a brilliant pattern and I love the finished jumper. The only thing I would change if I knitted another would be the sleeves. I knitted the long-sleeve option and the sleeves are just a bit baggier than I would like. They’re not so bad that it would be worth re-knitting them smaller but I would do it differently if I made another.

I am also considering sewing up part of the neckline as suggested by the pattern rather than continuing to wear it as a really deep v-neck. The weight of the cotton is already starting to stretch the neckline a little so I’m hoping that a bit more structure will help.

Having finished Sahara I went back to working on my Vino cardigan, complete with an updated version of the pattern from the designer. Unfortunately, I decided that knitting it from the top-down was proving too complicated so I started again from the bottom up but all in one piece. This was going pretty quickly until I started decreasing for the waist and realised (with 7″ of cardigan already knitted) that I was exactly 100 stitches short having screwed up my mental arithmetic in spectacular fashion. Various words were uttered and the cardigan has now been consigned to a bag until I can face frogging it.

As an alternative, I’ve cast on for a pair of socks for Steven. Since these are going to be exactly the same as the pair that I recently finished for me, I’m not anticipating any problems. Of course, as with most things, “past performance is no guarantee of future results” so watch this space!

… than with a finished project. December 29th saw the end of my quickest pair of socks ever. These are the Gentleman’s half hose in ringwood pattern from Knitting Vintage socks, otherwise known as my Cyberman socks.

The pattern was delightfully easy to knit and gives a beautiful texture that works very well with the solid-coloured yarn. What is even better is that they fit me perfectly!

These were originally going to be socks for Steven (especially when it looked like his Christmas present might not be delivered in time) but, since he ended up with my Leyburn socks, I decided to make these for me.

Turns out that I’m not going to get away with not making him a pair though. He was so impressed with my pair that I just can’t resist making another for him. Since I still have enough of the solid grey yarn left, they will unfortunately be identical to mine but matching husband and wife socks aren’t the end of the world, right?

I’m experimenting with a new style of photography today and as a change from the scary headless Mac webcam shots, this post will consist entirely of flat-on-the-floor shots.

Despite the appearance of Guitar Hero 3 and a Wii Fit in the flat, there’s still quite a lot of knitting getting done. This is almost entirely due to Steven’s insistence that he be allowed to play the Wii sometimes too.

My Sahara jumper now has a neck band and only needs the sleeves finished. Despite my natural laziness, I’ve admitted that I won’t wear it as often if it has short sleeves and since I have plenty of yarn left, I’m going to knit long sleeves instead. I’ve also decided that I’m not going to sew the v-neck up and will instead wear it with t-shirts underneath. (It’s not obvious in the photo but the v-neck currently ends somewhere round about the middle of my rib-cage.) This has been a great pattern and I can’t wait to wear the jumper. I may even make another one of these in future but not with cotton yarn. This one is knitted with RYC Luxury Cotton that I got in the Liberty sale and, while I love the fabric, trying to “P3tog tbl” with a splitty yarn that has no give in it has been a trial. The broken diamond rib pattern on the neck band was only possible with the application of a pair of sock needles and a crochet hook!

Having said on Thursday that I was clearly insane because I was already thinking about my next pair of socks when I hadn’t really enjoyed knitting the first two pairs, I proved it by casting on for another pair almost as soon as I finished blogging. I’ve christened these my Cyberman socks, mainly to make a very simple, very grey pair of socks seem more interesting. They’re actually the “Gentleman’s half hose in ringwood pattern” from Knitting Vintage Socks. Not that these are intended for any gentleman; these are all mine. Especially since I gave my Leyburn socks to Steven since I had managed to knit them exactly to his size. This is a really nice sock pattern. There’s just enough going on to not make them too boring too knit while being simple enough for me not to have to keep checking the pattern every second row. I’ve also finally had some of the almost instant gratification that sock knitters tell me about since the first sock was finished in just two days. Maybe I’m finally acquiring a taste for sock-knitting.

And, as a change from all the greys and blacks, how about some colour to finish off. After nearly a year, my Double Vision blanket has reached the halfway stage. I’m still loving the way the colours are blending together for this and still very bored with the never-ending garter stitch. However, the guilt of having to explain to my grandmother that the yarn that I bought with the money she gave me for Christmas last year still hasn’t quite been made into a blanket is getting to me. At least the L-shaped strips get shorter as the blanket progresses so it feels like it’s going faster.

Except that now I have three projects that I really want to get finished and only one pair of hands! Maybe I’ll go play Guitar Hero instead.

…even if it’s only knitting and blogging about knitting.

In case anyone has been wondering, the amazing amount of knitting that I’ve been getting done recently has been down to a combination of giving myself some time off from studying followed by what the nurse yesterday described as a “flu-like illness”. This was the same nurse who described me as “amazingly sensible” for having spent the past week curled up on the sofa and told me that, if I wanted to spend another week on the sofa, she’d happily write my employer a note to say that I could.

So, here I am, back on the sofa and thank goodness for BBC iPlayer and Doctor Who on DVD. (I should point out that I’m not terribly happy to be on the sofa but really don’t have the energy to go anywhere else.)

However, all this means that I do have more finished projects to show off. First up, my Leyburn socks.

And a close-up of the lattice pattern on them:

These just help confirm that I am insane. They’re slightly too big (one day I will knit me a pair of socks that fits); I’m still not really a fan of variegated yarn (although the lattice looks pretty good with it); I didn’t particularly enjoy knitting them but I’m already thinking about the next pair of socks that I might knit!

Next up is the baby cardigan and hat that I knitted for my friend’s new baby. These were actually knitted ages ago since the baby was due the day before our wedding but didn’t actually get seamed until a couple of days after the baby arrived. Fortunately for my knitting, but not for the parents, baby Daniel was a week late so we were back from honeymoon in plenty of time for me to finish the cardigan.

I’ve also finally gotten around to taking pictures of my Darkside Cowl that was also finished weeks ago. When I’m not sick, this is really handy for commuting to work. It’s just big enough to keep my neck snuggly and warm while being small enough to slip inside my bag when I get on a train.

You’ll have to excuse me now though, I have an episode each of Doctor Who and Doctor Who Confidential to go knit through.

So, from never having knitted a shawl before in my life, I’ve now knitted 4 in the past 6 months, 3 of which have been in the last month.

First up (after my wedding shawl) was a Sunday Market Shawl for a friend who recently had a baby.

The original pattern is for Noro Cash Iroha, which is a gorgeous yarn and I probably had enough in my stash to use it but it’s not machine-washable. Since the idea of the shawl was something that mum and baby could snuggle up under, I thought it best to stick with something that could be put in the washing machine when the inevitable happens. So, this was knitted in Debbie Bliss Donegal Aran Tweed instead. The Aran Tweed is a thick/thin yarn, like the Noro, so it kept the ever so slightly rustic feel of the shawl. The pattern itself couldn’t be easier since other than some yarn-overs at one end and dropping stitches at the other it is a stocking stitch rectangle.

In fact, I liked the pattern so much that I made another one.

This one is in Rowan Cocoon, colour Tundra and, if I can bring myself to give it away, it’s destined to be a Christmas present. The Rowan Cocoon is amazing yarn. It feels really soft and luxurious but only sheds a little. I also love this colour, which is impossible to photograph (especially using the built-in webcam on Steven’s Mac) but is light brown/grey and reminds me of wild rabbits.

Finally, I succumbed and knitted what sometimes seems to be the most commonly knitted shawl pattern on the planet: Clapotis. Being a contrary sort of person, I had always resisted knitting it, because I didn’t want to knit what everyone else was knitting. Then I decided that I didn’t have the money or energy to go shopping for a new dress for the Christmas parties this year and would instead spend a little money on some yarn and knit a wrap to liven up one of the large number of little black dresses that I already own.

Looking back, I think that all this was actually just an excuse to buy the skeins of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk in pink that had been calling to me in John Lewis for months.

Bizarrely, I didn’t really like the pattern, I hated the yarn but I love the final result! The pattern involves lots of knitting through the back of the loop, which made it feel fiddly and meant that it wasn’t really mindless knitting although it felt like it should have been. I also ran out of stitch markers at one point and had to make some more. The yarn was a nightmare to wind, tangling every time I blinked; was quite slubby, which I hadn’t expected in a silk yarn; and started pilling as I was knitting with it.

Fortunately, I love the finished shawl! Unfortunately, I’ve been ill and haven’t actually made it to any of the Christmas parties that I was invited to so I’ve been wearing it round the house while watching Doctor Who. There’s always next year, though.