Knit one, read two

Cake!

July 27, 2008August 29, 2008 SusanLeave a comment

Shopping for cake is supposed to be one of the best bits of planning a wedding and yesterday it absolutely lived up to the hype. Steven and I visited a cake shop to try some samples and chat about what we wanted (cupcakes!) and ended up placing our order and putting down a deposit, which means there is one more thing ticked off on the to-do list.

Then we came home and tried the samples they had given us. (The slices of cake were samples of their different sponges for the top tier cake that we’re going to have.) This was all really good cake and I’m just a little disappointed that I have to wait until November to have any more!

And, to make it even better, since Steven found out on Friday that he passed his final accountancy exam, we decided to open some champagne to celebrate.

You may be thinking that what is in those glasses doesn’t look a lot like champagne and you would be right. Those are glasses of Pimms Royale (1 part Pimms to 3 parts champagne) and they too were absolutely amazing. All in all, a very good day.

Fastest project ever!

July 16, 2008August 29, 2008 SusanLeave a comment

Cast on yesterday morning and the whole thing was knitted and properly finished (i.e. all the ends sewn in and everything) in just a couple of hours. It is a baby hat to go with the kimono cardigan that is also nearing completion. The cardigan edging has been knitted on and there is just the seaming left to do. Past experience would suggest that this means the cardigan will be completed some time next year but I’m determined not to leave it that long this time!

Oh, and if the hat seems a strange shape, it is because it is being modelled by a ball of bamboo yarn!

New, new, new

July 14, 2008August 29, 2008 SusanLeave a comment

New yarn, new projects and new progress on the old projects. (Okay, that last one was a bit of a stretch.)

One of the disadvantages of being on Ravelry is that I get to hear about yarn sales that I would previously have missed. This has resulted in me being at both the Liberty and John Lewis sales this month and stashing an unprecedented amount of yarn.

First up, at Liberty I got a jumper’s worth of RYC Cashcotton DK in Cashew,

which is already looking like this:

I’ve been needing a project that doesn’t require any brainpower at all as a change from my shawl, more on which later, and which can be combined with conversation and alcohol. I settled on the Katarina cardigan from cocoknits and I’m really liking the way it is knitting up. The yarn does shed a bit but I’m hoping that it won’t be so bad when it is finished.

I also got a jumper’s worth of RYC Luxury Cotton DK in black. Actually, I picked up slightly more than a jumper’s worth so that I could make this into a jumper for Steven. I’ve been having trouble finding a pattern though so this isn’t likely to turn into anything any time soon.

At the John Lewis sale I picked up what can only be described as “rather a lot” of Noro Cash Iroho in this beautiful red. Turns out I am unable to resist half-price cashmere/silk blends. I have no idea what this is going to be other than absolutely beautiful!

Buying new things has also spurred me on to make some progress on older things as well. Now that I have my ball-winder, I finally got around to winding the Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn that I bought back in September. These are going to be a pair of socks for me.

I’m making really good progress on the wedding shawl. I’ve now knitted 9 repeats out of the suggested 40 for the main body. I say ’suggested’ because I’m considering making it shorter than the pattern (I’m already making it wider) so that it will be easier to wear with my wedding dress. I’m still delighted with this project; the pattern and the yarn and everything are just coming together exactly as I thought they would and are going to be just as fantastic as I hoped.

I even managed to make some progress on the baby cardigan this weekend. It had been hibernating for a little while since I needed to block the pieces before I could sew it up. It has now been blocked and the shoulders seamed so I can get on with knitting the edging and then finishing the seaming. This is always the bit that I procrastinate for longest but since the baby isn’t due till November, I’m still confident I can have it finished in time.

Apologies for the rotten picture, I was trying to sneak in some photography time before leaving for work and this was the best I could do.

The Shawl

June 23, 2008August 29, 2008 SusanLeave a comment

The Yarn:

The Swatch:

and I’ve now cast on for the shawl itself and completed 1.5 of the 40 pattern repeats. I’ll need to take some pictures of the progress so far on the shawl since I made a few mistakes on the swatch and it doesn’t look nearly as good as the shawl.

Edited to add:
The Shawl:

(For the non-knitters, the dark yarn knitted on the bottom is a place-holder for the lace border that will eventually go there; my tastes are far too traditional to wear a shawl with a black border on my wedding day, unless I am genuinely in mourning!)

The yarn is fantastic to work with. It was a little ‘grabby’ when I tried to wind it so I ended up undoing a section of the skein (probably about a meter at a time) and then winding that section and then undoing the next section and winding that and so on. Amazingly this got me a better tension when winding than trying to wind continuously.

The only thing that is worrying me now is that I still have no idea how the border gets knitted on to the shawl afterwards. I keep looking at the instructions in the book and they make no sense whatsoever (why can’t lace knitting use the same terminology as ordinary knitting?). I’m also thinking that my plan of waiting until I’ve knitted the rest of the centre of the shawl and then trying to figure it out might not be the best policy. I guess I’m going to have to find some spare time and sit down with some scrap yarn and experiment.

I am loving working with the Knitpicks Options needles on this project. They’re nice and slippery, which is vital, because the yarn really isn’t. They’re also sharp enough that knitting through the backs of stitches or knitting lots of stitches together is very easy to do.

All in all, an excellent start!

Two out of three ain’t bad…

June 19, 2008August 29, 2008 SusanLeave a comment

as Meatloaf used to sing but three out of three is definitely better!

I got my first set of actuarial exam results tonight and passed all three of the exams that I sat so I’m currently a very happy and excited Susan.

To top everything off the yarn arrived for my shawl and it is just as beautiful as I hoped it would be. It’s a gorgeous slinky 100% silk so feels fantastic without having a ‘halo’ or as much chance of me shedding over all the guests at the wedding as mohair or cashmere would. I can promise lots of pictures to follow!

I’ve never been so excited …

June 18, 2008August 29, 2008 SusanLeave a comment

… about yarn in my entire life! I finally ordered yarn for my wedding shawl at the start of this week and I cannot wait till it gets here. I had real difficulty finding a luxurious laceweight yarn in a suitable colour that was actually in stock somewhere in the UK but eventually stumbled across Knitwitches and fell in love with their undyed 100% silk laceweight. Two skeins will shortly be on their way across country to be turned into the Myrtle Leaf Shawl from the “Victorian Lace Today” book.

Fortunately, the baby knitting is progressing apace and I may even have it very nearly finished before the yarn for the shawl gets here.

That’s the back and the first front in the picture. The second front is nearly done now too, which just leaves the sleeves and a knitted edging (which will match the edging at the bottom of the pieces in the picture and stop the front rolling the way it is in this picture).

It is really nice to get the (almost) instant gratification that knitting baby things brings. It is an entire knitted garment but can still be produced in a matter of hours. I doubt that the shawl will be finished quite so quickly!

What’s in a name?

June 16, 2008August 29, 2008 SusanLeave a comment

I was thinking over the weekend about the implications of changing my name when Steven and I get married later in the year. Over time I have gone backwards and forwards about whether I would take my husband’s name when I got married or not. By the time we finally got around to getting married, I had pretty much decided that while I am happy to go against societal conventions, I do get fed up explaining why I am doing so to people. Hence, mainly out of laziness, I decided that I would change my name. It saves any confusion when we have children and means that I won’t have to get into complicated discussions about why I’m not Mrs. Hanlon.

One of the considerations was the fact that I don’t yet have a professional reputation to worry about. If I was more established in my career, I might have considered keeping my name professionally but at this point, it is unlikely that I will confuse anyone by changing it.

What occurred to me over the weekend though was that I have established a reputation under my maiden name, it is just an online one rather than a professional one. I am registered just about everywhere under my full maiden name: Distributed Proofreaders, Ravelry, Flickr, Facebook, Yahoo, Googlemail. Even the texts that I have submitted to Project Gutenberg are credited to my maiden name. Hundreds of people know me under a variety of usernames, all based on my maiden name. Some of these sites will let me change my userid, so I could change my name but some won’t. I also know that if I only “know” someone online, I struggle if they change their username because I have difficulty transferring the associations to the new name.

Given all this, it looks like I am going to be keeping my maiden name after all, even if only virtually!

Antique Pattern Library

June 13, 2008August 29, 2008 SusanLeave a comment

Months ago, someone at Distributed Proofreaders pointed out the Antique Pattern Library website and suggested that they could be a good source of scans of public domain needlework and craft books for us to work on.

Fast forward to this week and it has finally happened! Volunteers from the Antique Pattern Library have agreed that we can process their scans to produce versions suitable for submission to Project Gutenberg.

I’m really excited about this! They have a great selection of 19th and early 20th century knitting, crochet, tatting, embroidery and other needlework books up there. That is a huge treasury of patterns and methods and inspiration and I love that we can help make it more widely available.

The projects are still in initial preparation at the moment but will hopefully be available for proofreading soon.

Random Friday musings

June 13, 2008August 29, 2008 SusanLeave a comment

How does someone manage to stub their middle toe so badly it turns a ghastly purpley-black colour without injuring the surrounding toes in any way at all?

I managed to do this while walking downstairs this morning but have no idea how!

How can I manage to go into a yarn store intending to buy a pattern book, yarn for baby presents, yarn and needles for a wedding shawl, and a bottle of cider and come out having spent only £5.50?

This one I do know the answer to: £2.50 on “Natural Knits for Babies and Mums” by Louisa Harding (I Knit special offer) and £3.00 on a bottle of cider. I Knit just did not have anything I fancied yarn-wise. I occasionally feel guilty for not buying more of my knitting supplies there, since I spend most Thursday nights in the shop knitting and chatting (and drinking organic cider) but they just don’t tend to stock yarn that I like using. The cider is fantastic, though!

How do I manage to not spend lots of money in a yarn shop that I intended to spend money in and yet manage to spend lots of money on knitting-related paraphernalia over the internet, whilst at work?

I actually think this is a reaction to the above question. I got really excited last night about the idea of buying yarn and needles to get started on the wedding and baby knitting, so when nothing came of it, I just had to have another go this morning. So, I bought the Honeybee stole pattern, some longer cables for my KnitPicks Options needles and some Rowan Cashsoft DK yarn for a baby jumper from the Louisa Harding book. I can’t find anywhere that has laceweight yarn that I like in a colour that will go with my wedding dress in stock at the moment so I also emailed a couple of places to find out when they are likely to get something in.

Meanwhile, I get to decide whether I’d rather do the Honeybee or the Myrtle Leaf Shawl from “Victorian Lace Today”. I’m currently leaning towards the Honeybee but love the idea of making something based on an original vintage pattern (the premise behind the Victorian lace book). Now that I actually own both patterns, I’ll sit down over the weekend to compare them and hopefully make a decision.

One thing at a time …

June 11, 2008August 29, 2008 SusanLeave a comment

… is something I’ve never been particularly good at. But, I’ve finished one thing so that means I’m allowed to start another, right?

The finished thing is Gran’s Lace Ribbon Scarf, which is drying on the floor behind me as I type. I’m not sure it’s going to be dry enough to package up to be posted tomorrow but at least it’s knitted on time! I’ll take a better picture once it’s dry.

The new thing is the Shetland Shorty from the latest issue of Knitty. I bought some Sirdar Just Bamboo yarn on clearance at Hobbycraft last week and have been hunting around for something to make with it.

Although there are only 9 balls in the picture, I’ve actually got 12, four of each colour. The others were off being swatched when the photo was taken.

It’s far heavier than yarn suggested for the pattern so there’s going to be quite a lot of tweaking involved and I’m already thinking that I might lengthen the cardigan to suit me better but that’s all part of the fun!