The end of the work on my wedding shawl that is. I’m now more than half-finished with the border so there really isn’t much left to do. Here it is, not-terribly-artistically draped across the sofa:
and a close-up of one of the corners with the border attached:
Not bad for two months’ knitting. I can’t wait it to see it with the pattern properly blocked!
…that you should be allowed to go back and re-take. Like my decision to go to I Knit this evening.
Just think, if I hadn’t gone I wouldn’t be appearing in a video clip on national TV tomorrow knitting a beige cardigan to show how hip and cool knitting is these days. Or pouting with rock-chick attitude at the camera while drumming with large knitting needles to the beat of a pop song by a band that I’ve never heard of.
And, no, I’m not telling you where and when this travesty will be airing; I have some pride left (I think).
The good news is that I think my Katarina cardigan is now finished bar the casting off and weaving in of ends so there should be pictures of the finished item over the weekend!
It’s been a strange week this week. It started last weekend looking like this:
with me studying for my upcoming exams while working on my Katarina cardigan and eating biscuits.
It was then followed by a bad stomach bug that resulting in me spending 5 days on the sofa watching Buffy DVDs. (6 series in 5 days combined with exam and wedding stress has resulted in some very bizarre dreams about demons that I’d have been able to vanquish easily if only I had finished coding our wedding website.)
There was some good during the week though (other than the Buffy-watching). There was the day that I spent watching a fox sleep in the sunshine on top of our garage roof:
And just to prove that that really is a fox, here’s a badly-enlarged section of the photo.
We still don’t know how he gets up and down from there but he’s becoming a regular.
There was also a lot of knitting done although sadly my food-deprived brain wasn’t really up to lace knitting and it somehow didn’t occur to me that I might want to take pictures of knitting projects as well as foxes. I do however have a very nearly complete cardigan with sewn-up seams and everything. My Katarina cardigan just needs the garter stitch shawl collar finished (which will hopefully get done at I Knit on Thursday) and the ends woven in and it will be ready to wear. I’m so pleased with it (and promise to post pictures soon); the sizing is perfect; the yarn is beautiful (although it sheds a lot) and it looks fantastic on. All I need now is for the weather to cool down enough for me to be able to wear it.
I also have almost the whole of the first of the Leyburn socks (again, pictures will follow). I just need to decide how long I want the leg to be. I’m torn because I usually wear my socks fairly short but that will leave me with lots of leftover yarn and since the yarn looks so good in this pattern I’m thinking I might just go ahead and knit them to the full length.
Unfortunately, not much of it is terribly photogenic right now.
I’m about halfway through the body of the shawl and people are starting to believe that it might get done before the wedding. (I’m not sure I’m one of them but I’ll keep trying!)
My Katarina cardigan is progressing well. The endless stocking stitch is a real relief after the amount of concentration that the shawl needs. I’ve finished the back and one and half pieces of the front, just leaving the sleeves and the knitted on collar to go. Should be ready by the time the weather gets cool enough to actually wear it.
And then there is one project that actually merits a picture (or two).
These are the Leyburn socks from Pepperknit.
These were cast on to be a middle ground between the complicated lace and endless stocking stitch. They’re mostly stocking stitch but with a beautifully simple but effective lattice pattern. They are also the first pair of socks that I’ve knitted from the toe up and I’m still amazed at the way that the toe miraculously became 3D without me needing to do anything other than knit backwards and forwards. One day I’ll wrap my head around how that happens!
I’m also really happy with the way that this pattern looks with this yarn. I treated myself to the Cherry Tree Hill yarn at the opening of the new I Knit shop, promptly tangled the skein horribly trying to wind it without a ball-winder and then hated the way it looked in all the sock patterns I tried. I think we have a winner this time though.
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 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 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!
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!
… 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!
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!
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!
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.