In which we discuss many completely unrelated topics!

Knitting News (beep-de-de-beep-de-de-beep)

1, My socks are finished

Socks, meet the blue bench; Blue Bench meet Rolling Thunder. Perhaps slightly more carnival band type thunder than the american indian type thunder Knitty envisaged but if you're going to have lound socks you might as well go the whole nine yarns and add turquoise beads.

H gave me the yarn for Christmas and I love it and the way it fits the pattern - definitely kismet.

2, The update you really want to see:

The picture isn't fantastic and the whole thing will need blocking but the third row of blocks is now finished as of this morning. This pattern is great to knit - I highly recommend it and Baby Cashmerino makes a great fabric and so far seems fine as a substitute to the discontinued Debbie Bliss wool cotton and you get a little bit more of it to the ball.

The baby is still due May 14th and as far as I know has not made an early appearance. If I can finish the next tier during next week, one or perhaps two during next weekend then I'll have the bank holiday weekend to put the borders on and block it and give it to the hopefully pleased parent of the baby-to-be. It's all in the power of positive thinking/self delusioning (is that even a word?)

Yarny news or The Stashbust is over
And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, Ill say it clear,
Ill state my case, of which Im certain.

Ive knit, all from my stash.
Ive knit on each and evry highway;
And more, much more than this,
I knit it my way.

Rip backs, Ive had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And knit anew without exemption.

I planned my charted lace;
Each careful stich knitting every day,
But more, much more than this,
I knit it my way.

Yes, there were times,
Im sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could warp the space time continuum sufficiently to accomplish.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I stayed up late and knit it out.
I faced my stash, needles in hand;
-And knit it my way!
(with apologies to Frank Sinatra who is by now surely turning in his grave!)

Having completed the stash-bustalong yarn free period with only the purchase of present yarn one day before the end of the period bringing me even close to cracking it is possible that some yarn may have come home with me today and more may be arriving in the mail in due course.

My chief evidence for this is that I found these under the poinsetta while it was airing today.

On the left is a new pair of socks for H and on the right is Jitterbug Blue Parrot that is a million times prettier in real life than in the photo. Of course the only way that they could have arrived here is by sensing my need for them and creating some form of transportation to my house. "Didn't you just have a yarn binge?" I hear you ask; ..........now why would you think that...!

Truly random topicsRandom dead donkey - this is delicious if you like your cider - proper cider (ie dry not alcoholic apple juice) with a dash of blackcurrant liquer - oh does this hit the spot!

Anyway, after that ramble I shall leave you to your evening's entertainment and I have to go and finish preparing for a rather exciting weekend - more on that later!

Another sunny day

Well what should a girl do with her new blue bench?

(1) Eat breakfast on it and (2) introduce it to knitwear - do you want to see something pretty?

This

is 435 metres of curious yarns' pure silk laceweight in a colourway named Tired Roses. Curious Yarns are having a little hiatus at the moment and I hope they will be back soon because not only do they sell wonderful stitch markers but this yarn is beautiful and I want more in lots of different colours!

Giving in to the inner colour junkie I have also rescued this to meet the new bench:

This is self striping yarn that I have already threaded up for Knitty's Rolling Thunder socks from the Winter 2006 Knitty. I started then a while ago on 2.5mm needles but they seemed too big so I'll try the 2.25 the pattern calls for and see how we go.

Today's expetition (as another bear of little brain would say) was to the farm for some Easter food and while there we met this gentleman:

This is Hamish - I defy you not to utter an uncontrollable "aaaaw" at seeing him - he is very cute and usually lives in a large henhouse next to the farm shop but was out today to say hello to everyone for Easter!

Having executed all inescapable chores I settled down in the garden this afternoon for another day of sunbasking and some lace therapy.

This is the first repeat of a pattern I'm making up myself and I'm enjoying getting back into the swing of lace knitting - it doesn't have the flow of stocking stitch and although it does have the tangled mess look at the moment I have sufficient faith in the blocking process for lace that it will all even out in the end! (NB the earlier picture gives a better indication of the colour)

Now if you'll excuse me Doctor Who is on and I need to go and cast on a sock.

PS - we will gloss over the result of the boat race, suffice to say that our boys put up an excellent fight and I only realised too late that I was wearing the wrong colour jumper.

Just wait until next year

It's the time of the season

Farewell to Blue, Grey and White of winter and hello to the new April/May colours of Pink Yellow and Green for this new sector of Project Spectrum. To celebrate even the plants in the garden have arrived on cue:

Sadly the pink ones blew over in the wind and I didn't think petals on the ground had quite the same effect!

However, before I do consign all of the blue/grey/white yarn to the back of the stash for a bit, time for a little reflection on the last two months of blue projects. We have two pairs of socks in blue and blue/purple , my wonderful trellis scarf, a set of hat and mittens and last but not least my refined raglan. (plus two pairs of bookbooksecret socks). Gosh, that's actually quite a lots of knitting - no wonder my house looks the way it does!.

I have LOVED the blue/white/grey (although there wasn't much grey) and it has seemed so appropriate to be knitting in those colours to match the outside world and it has matched very well with my UFO and Stashbustalong which finishes round one at least on 15 April.

In the last two months I have finished my oldest UFO (the trellis scarf) and knitted up the largest amount of yarn that has spent the longest in my stash when the deep blue alpaca finally told me what it wanted to be.

Looking forward I can happily embrace yellow pink and green with my Raspberry red/pink Aimee that needs finishing, some yellow white and green varigated dishcloth cotton which I am very tempted to use to make this although I think that this is very clever and might be rather fun. I also have one skein of delicious silk laceweight in the colour Tired Roses which is soft green and pink and is just wonderful to look at. I've written myself a pattern for a scarf based on a few other patterns I've seen around - if it's a success I may tell you about it!

I also know of a couple of babies in waiting who belong to families fully deserving of knitted goodies to welcome their arrival into the world and as they are both summer babes it seems cruel to inflict knitted jackets which won't fit by the time it is really cool enough for the bambinos to wear them (plus I have no idea whether they are boys or girls) so this time it's blankets - more specifically Debbie Bliss' Alphabet blanket x2. Blanket production will start as soon as the current knitting is finished and this time I will be able to share some progress as neither Mummy-to-be reads this blog (I think in one case and devoutly hope in the other!)

My current knitting is still the bookbooksecret socks of which I have finished three of my remaining 4 - I've been knitting up a whirl. However, spring has arrived and despite trying to stave off second sock syndrome I retreated to my garden today and what started out as a plan to weed one of the flowerbeds turned into a full scale weed of two large beds (they were very weedy) and planting them up with summer bulbs and a few violas, pansys and antihurrums for instant colour - it's going to look fantastic come the summer (or possibly not - soil depending!)

For the moment it looks like this:

and while I can see that the beds look very flat there are things that will grow pretty tall (two packets of sunflowers for a start) and I can't wait - roll on the summer.

Her hat is a creation that will never go out of style; it will just look ridiculous year after year.

(Fred Allen)

Hurrah the hat is finished - do you want to see?

Now I should probably add in a little disclaimer before I let you see the picture. Point number 1 is that nobody, but nobody looks good in a photo designed to show off the hat and not the person wearing it. If you don't believe me then google some of the blogs and you'll find that people in their hats look very different to their normal photos.

The other thing is that this was the travelling hat of a girl who that morning had got up at 5.45 to travel from Norwich to London to Court, then from London to the office and from the office to home. Also said girl only went to bed at 12.30 the night before because she was out entertaining clients (it's a hard life I know!). Needless to say - this is the picture of a very tired person.

Et voila!

I asked H to model it rather than me so he did:

Ok so do you want to see it properly?

The inside is very pretty too - in the picture above you can just see the green peeking through at the bottom and here it is in all its glory:Details (such as they are):

The yarn is all Alpaca Select DK weight alpaca in various colour - the dark blue is left over from my refined raglan and the rest is part of a scarf kit which best friend gave me from Christmas which has been split up to make mittens and now a hat. The green is Debbie Bliss Pure Silk which was left over from a tie front cardi that was also a Christmas present.

I cast on 120st with a provisional cast on with the green and knit in the round on 3.25 mm needles until I ran out of yarn then I knit 1 row in cream, purled for the turning row and started on the front. The fairisle pattern is pilfered from the Shetland Hat pattern in Rowan's RYC Classic Alpaca book and I added an extra row of little diamonds on the top to add a bit of length.

When the length of the outside of the hat matched the green lining I unpicked the crochet cast on, knit a round to match the last round on the outside of the hat and then knit the two together for the next round.

Whilst it doesn't match my mittens it does tone rather nicely and I love it - it got a good test this morning helping to tidy up a friend's garden in a cold northerly breeze.

So as project spectrum's grey, white and blue months come to a close I think I have knit all of my intended projects - although there are many non-knitting things that I meant to do but haven't quite got round to.

I now have two pairs of blue socks (ones for me to keep rather than for the BookbookSecret), a finished lace scarf, my refined raglan and blue and white hat and mittens - what more could a girl want and all from stash (some of it older than others!).

Now for more bookbooksecret knitting - hurrah and happy weekend

Gaaaaaa

That kind of sums up my reaction to today - much much pressure and no less than five phone calls with people ranting at me - gaaaaa - quite!

Now, time for something pretty

My finished Spring socks of doomy brightness. The yarn is Opal DK weight and I have no idea what the colour is as it is something which H bought me for Christmas - wonderfully snuggly and loads of the ball left - we may yet see me (a) work out how to knit toe-up socks and (b) make a pair of footsies with the leftovers - anyone know any good pattens or guides?

In the meantime I have another yarn adventure to look forward to - another pair of test socks for Anna's new book this time in the project spectrum colour of grey. Cunningly in threading the beads (shh - yes it has beads) onto the yarn we threaded them onto the wrong end of the yarn so I am about to see whether I can pull them through to where I need them by standing at the top of the stairs and letting gravity assist while I re-wind - may all your thoughts be with me!

Stop the world - I want a break!

Gosh life is busy at the moment - I seem to run around and barely stop. Happily though I got to work from home today yippeee!

I also got to really scare the living daylights out of the window cleaner who was rather surprised to find me in the study when he climbed up to to clean the window. The funniest thing was that rather than knock at the door to tell me he was finished, he climbed up to the study window again to talk to me!!

Working from home is great - the phone doesn't ring and you get a chance to really concentrate. And - if you're really lucky- you get to concentrate in pretty places. This afternoon Clara the Clio had to have her MOT and while the garage were doing it I got to sit in the park and read my latest new instruction.

Things I should probably not admit:

1. After the MOT I did go and book myself a spa day with some vouchers H gave me for Christmas which isn't really working (promise not to tell the boss)

2. I think it's really cool that someone wants me to work on their file enough to courier it to me yesterday so that I could read it today and advise on it tomorrow

3. The claimants on this file are going to be a real pain in the neck - unnecesarily beligerent and aggressive.

4. They are likely to get less help from my client than if they were nice and tried to sort things out sensibly. Plus now they get me on the other end of the phone - big mistake on their part!

5. Hee hee

The sock came to the park too:

No-one will ever believe me when I say that I did not knit one stitch of that sock while sat in the park this afternoon (or 2, 3, 4 etc I know the devious minds of knitters!), it merely came for the scenery and because its mate got to play in a bush on Saturday.

The sock is now significantly longer and despite all it's best efforts I am forcing it to be an identical sock rather then a sibling sock (knots are causing there to be significant bids for independence by the second sock). On that point why are the knots always in the second sock so you are short a stripe rather than being able to take a stripe out of the second sock to match the first? - Answers on a postcard.

Aside from that the pattern is largely a figment of my imagination - I just do what looks right at the appropriate moment and I love the colours of the striping, all the way through project spectrum - very colours of spring and summer - the red is raspberries and strawberries mushed with cream, the yellow is sunshine and the colour of the sunshade we had when I was small, the green is the new growth on our box hedge-in-progress, the blue is the colour of the sky or how I imagine the colour of rain, purple is the colour of blackcurrant stains on your hands (and/or t-shirt) the red and black is more berries and the white is vanilla ice-cream (from Salcombe Dairy of course) and clouds. Instant summer thoughts!

A conflict of interest

In my chosen profession it's not uncommon to come across a conflict of interest - I'm a solicitor (or as I am reliably informed "a shark" in American). Conflicts between what the client ought to do and what the client wants to do or conflicts between two clients who have decided that now would be the perfect time to pick a fight with each other and what's more they both want us to deal with it. As a professional body we have very clear guidelines about what to do in those particular situations (sadly put the lot of them in a room, lock the door and give them PowerPoint presentations until they sort it out is not one of them).

As a yarn-obsessed knitter by night/train/any time I'm not working I also encounter a number of "knitting conflicts" - should I do the washing up or a bit more on my sweater? should I go to the farm for food or just work out an extremely cunning method of finishing the neckband of my sweater?

So my query is - what are the protocol rules for such conflicts of interest?

By way of exhibit A I give you the finished Refined Raglan:

(NB the odd splotches are the camera not the jumper)

Finished on Saturday morning when I should have been going to the farm for some food but it kept raining and I wanted to wear the sweater. More details below.

My current conflict is between my house and my yarn. Somewhere under my yarn and H's sports equipment we have a house. It is a very nice house and we love it very much. H is away this week on a training course and I therefore have the opportunity to make the house very tidy (and possibly in the process convince H that the mess is from the sporty things and not the yarn - yeah right who am I kidding).

Alternatively I have four evenings of uninterrupted knitting.

I think (and I can scarcely believe I am saying this) that parts of the house may win but only because, as I told myself yesterday, I have nothing on the needles. In fact 'nothing' consists of a pair of socks I am test knitting for a friend and my pink Aimee which I am hiding ostensibly until Project Spectrum comes round to pink (April/May) and really because I had finally found the perfect pattern for the blue alpaca and really really wanted the sweater!

So, turning to the Law Society for guidance on what to do:

"You must not act if there is a conflict of interests"

Fair enough - don't act - the least action I can possibly take it to curl up on the sofa so that sounds like knitting to me.

You may act for two or more clients in relation to a matter in situations of conflict or possible conflict if: the different clients have a substantially common interest in relation to that matter or a particular aspect of it"

Now the common interests of the knitting and the house are:
- keeping the knitter warm (hmm that jumper)
- keeping H warm (with woolly socks)
- keeping the knitter sane (anything with pointy sticks)
- keeping H sane (a sane wife)
I've left out the requirement for consent in writing because the knitting (to date) cannot write. The house can write - it makes patterns with dust bunnies and cobwebs - mostly saying "clean me".

Conclusion would seem to be that I should do both and so I shall try but if all else fails I shall fall back to the position that if there is a conflict the basic rule is the person who instructs you first gets to retain you. My grandmother taught me to knit very badly as a small child (not sure exactly when but I was still sharing a room with my sister so pretty tiny) and I didn't get a real house that I owned until I was 25 so the knitting wins hands down on that one.

I'll let you know how I get on but I submit to you ("m'lud") that give a lawyer a blog page and the possibility of knitting she can justify anything!

Now on to the jumper ... It is gorgeous DK weight Alpaca, it took 2 weeks to knit and it smells like my grandmother's house probably because of the cedar balls I had in the yarn while it was in storage.

I made very few refinements to the pattern (Refined Raglan from IK Winter 2006), I dropped a needle size (by 0.5mm) to get a better fabric and a smaller gauge. I think I would get perfect gauge if 4.25 mm needles existed but I used 4mm and got the fitted look I was going for. It has yet to be blocked so there is a possibility of massive growth/shrinkage although the swatch turned out fine.

I added a few inches to the body and the sleeves because they were a bit short and finally I did cunning things to the neck - the pattern says to bind off and then whip stitch the bound off edge to the inside of the neckband. I tried that but my bind off edge was too tight so I undid it and replaced it with a sort of Kitchener attempt - sewing the live stitches to the neckband edge with a bit of inspiration and guidance from Agnes' blog post on her husband's sweater - thank you Agnes.

The photo is very bad but the jumper is very good - I finished it Saturday lunchtime and wore it for the rest of the weekend - testament indeed to the power of knitting over housework!

Some piccies and another FO

Well I couldn't do pictures earlier in week but now I can - ta da!

First up we have the blue Refined Raglan from Winter 2006 IK - exciting viewing isn't it!

I'm adding rather a lot to it in length and I suspect I will run out of yarn and have to try to acquire some more but I would rather do that than have a jumper that is too short and just irritates me. It always suprises me how much I have to add to patterns in length because although I am very tall (I'm 6'0") my height is in my legs rather than my back. On the plus side no-one has yet suggested thigh length socks!

Enough of that - I tried to get a picture to show the true colour of the yarn as this is as close as I got:But a bit less electric!

Now then, those mittens. I was going to take a picture of my first finished mitted on Thursday night but the light wasn't very good so I thought I would wait until Friday afternoon for a daylight shot.

I worked from home yesterday afternoon as I was in court in the morning. By the time of taking the photos I had this to show you:

And now I have this:

The pattern is Knitty's Corazon mittens which are a great pattern, really easy to follow and a great quick knit (as you see given I finished the second mitten in a day!) I was very proud of myself for doing two handed colour stranding throughout and I have definitely become more proficient - roll on more fairisle!

The only alteration I made to the original pattern was to decrease on every round in the tip rather than every other round as the pattern calls for as I needed slightly shorter mittens - mmm Alpaca mittens are seriously snuggly!

I've been running again today so as Ihave been virtuous I should get to snuggly up in a duvet and watch telly but sadly I have to do some work - maybe later.

Have a good weekend one and all!

A thing of beauty

It's official - I am a convert to lace knitting - the scarf is beautiful. I have blocked things before and been pleased and slightly surprised when they stay the same shape when you take the pins out but this is staggering. It is light soft and fluffy and I may wear it forever - I'm wearing it right now and I suspect my drizzle scarf has serious competition!

The pattern is Evelyn Clark's Trellis Scarf from Spring 2006 Interweave Knits and I used probably two ish balls of Rowan Kid Silk Haze in Heavenly (the yarn is a guesstimate as I have a few part used balls left over from other projects and I used two of those and a chunk of a new ball)

Look - see how pretty the trellis looks when you get up close - seriously photos can't do justice you'll just have to come to see it in person!

I also have a finished pair of socks, the Secret Water socks:

They are a pattern of my own design - a standard sock pattern with a two by two rib at the top, a Balabriggan Heel And a star toe

Both the heel and the toe come from Nancy Bush's Folk Socks book.

And why are they Secret Water socks? well I can't get this to shop up well enough on a picture on my own but on the leg of the sock I have a texture motif of dolphins - two swimming round one way and two underneath going the other way - too secret even to be seen - that's very secret!

So now I have no socks on the needles and no main project (given Aimee's sabbatical) - what shall I do next?

And another first

This time first lace. I present to you the journey of lace:

Stage one - the knitting completed and waiting for a miracleStage two - having a little soak! I promise you that despite the colour differences it really is the same scarf. The scarf is heavenly pale blue KSH, the carpet is cornflower blue and the basin is avacado green!The blocking process complete - who needs a blocking board when you have stripy towels!

And just look at it - squeee

Sneaky little exta

I'm posting from work - shhh!

When I last posted (Saturday lunchtime) I had done 11 repeats of 23 needed for the Trellis scarf. As of last night I have done 19 (and just started the 20th) - hee hee - nearly there, nearly there. I am so excited (as you can probably tell) because now I only have 4 repeats to go and a lace border - at least it's 4 repeats, the first 8 rows of the repeat and the lace border and I really can finish that this week - squeee!

Given that I picked this up again at the beginning of Feb and it's only the 12th now it makes me wonder quite why I put it down in the first place - I suspect the lure of other more exciting projects. I started it last May after we got back from our honeymoon as part of last year's Porject Spectrum and it took me ages and a lot of frogging to get the hand of the border let alone the pattern. It then got put aside as just the border and the first repeat (having discovered that k7 into 5 is hard) when the yarn arrived for Smoulder and I needed to finish a baby jacket for my cousin. I added another 3 repeats in September when I was (again) waiting for yarn for Smoulder and then it got put aside. It is soft and floaty and I love it already and I can't wait to see it blocked.

My original plan for Feb was to try to complete one repeat per day which would produce a finished scarf by the end of the month but I appear to be over achieving - if only all over achievement was as easy as it is with knitting targets!

When I finish it I have a whole host of potential blue/white/grey project to choose from: my Secret Water socks are on the needles (currently on the second sock), I have some petrel blue alpaca to make a sweater from which will probably be the next big project and some more blue and cream alpaca which was a scarf kit that I was given for Christmas but which I would really like to use to make a mitten and hat set and all sort of other non-knitting craft projects.

The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed that references to Aimee have dropped recently. She is still in progress and I have nearly finished the back but as her colour suits the next set of Project Spectrum so well and she is a summer sweater rather than the more winterly Alpaca Raglan so I have no qualms in leaving Aimee for April!

Meanwhile ....
4 repeats
half a repeat
border
blocking

Hello all

I can't believe it's been another week - I keep meaning to post mid-week but somehow I never get the time - note to self: must make more effort!

Right...... backtracking a little bit, this is my picture from last Sunday - it was sunny so we went on an expetition - "to where?" I hear you ask. Bidford upon Avon:

"Why did you go there?" - weeeeeeeeeell.... Top Gear's latest 'good idea' was to see whether it was possible to resurface a road in 24 hrs and the road they chose is in Bidford. It isn't actually a very pretty road so we didn't take any pictures of the road but compensated by taking pictures of the very pretty town/village comme ca:
"Did you do anything exciting while you were there?"

Yes; we woke up a duck which was hiding under a fishing platform

Monday I was continuing the blue theme for Project Spectrum

H bought me these little fellas a while back and they happily skip around on my trellis scarf marking the pattern repeats.
On Tuesday more Project Spectrum, this time white:

Venison and Plum Sausage Sandwich - yum!
And then it got very cold and rather frosty...

Wednesday I was working from home so that I could go to the dentist in the afternoon and this is what the world looked like in the morning:

Very winter wonderland!

I also received my second valentine ATC, this time from Raesha, and it is so very pretty - thank you Raesha

And check out the stamps! I love the Hershey's Kiss stamp and the butterfly I can see making an appearance in a used stamp ATC in the near future!

And then on Thursday and Friday:

IT SNOWED!!!!! - this is the view from my office window

In knitting news I am being true to both Project Spectrum and my UFO Bust Stashalong, I have the second Secret Water sock on the needles (along with some test knitting in pale blue) and I've done 11 repeats now on the trellis scarf - this piccy shows the scarf at 9 repeats with a needle marking the point at which I picked it up again - 23 needed in total before the end border. It is very pretty and I have yet to experience the miracle of lace that will make what currently looks like a very pretty scarf into something rather special.

The pattern is too complicated for me to remember completely but I am getting familiar with the repeats within each row and a bit better at the knit 7 together into 5 direction which is helping things along. It still takes me about 1.5 hours to do one pattern repeat which seems a huge time for 16 rows compared to the equivalent time in stst but that's lace for you.

Sadly all the snow and ice means that Achilles has stuck rather tortoisely (is that a word) on his tracker bar but the snow is melting today and hopefully I will get a chance to run tomorrow

In the meantime I think a good film and knitting is in order!

Project Spectrum Commences

Well it is as you know Saturday and my traditional day for updating you on photos from the week.

I have a confession to make...

...no photos from the beginning of the week - just too much work going on to make anything other than eating and sleeping a viable option.

So jumping straight to Thursday and the start of Project Spectrum we have the start of a sock. I'm stashbusting as well as this yarn was a Christmas present from H in beautiful blues and white.

Progress has now continued on the sock - I'm actually now even further along than in these picutres but there are two very special things about this sock. One is that it is called a Secret Water sock - if you look very carefully you might be able to see why - drop me a comment if you think you've sussed it out and I will reveal all when the socks are finished, and the second is that I have been using Nancy Bush's Folk Socks (which H also gave me for Christmas) to try out the Balbriggan heel as a new twist on an old favourite. I will report on comfort and fit in due course!

I was also lucky enough to receive my third Water ATC in the post on Friday - obviously a lady after my own heart if water automatically means sea!

This morning I received an ATC in the Valentine swap which is just beautiful (and came with such a sweet sachet of strawberry tea which made the envelope and the ATC smell wonderful!) - hey maybe we should have a Project Spectrum ATC swap - anyone up for it?

To make up for the lack of photos earlier in the week I went out this morning while it was still really frosty to play with the camera and the garden - trying to find things to fit with a blue/white/grey theme

Frost crystals

Morning sun through the trees
Frost just starting to drip off the grass as the garden warms up. Now all I need to do is warp the space time continuum so that I can get all of my chores done in 30 seconds flat and I can settle down to a nice afternoon knitting!