C'est finit- well almost

Oooo it's been a while since I got a chance to say hello to the bloggisphere - "hello!" - life has been manic and when not being manic I have been knitting in a crazy effort to complete baby E's blanket before he is old enough to drive himself over to see me and I am pleased to report success in that quarter.

(pre-blocking)

I wanted to have the blanket finished by August and as of 10pm last night it was blocking on a towel on the spare bedroom floor. This blanket did take slightly longer than the first - partly becuase I wasn't knitting so intently (16 days is a bit crazy) and partly because it was the second blanket and I knew what it was going to look like.

Incidentally the fact that I knew what it was going to look like and what modifications I was going to make (the modifications that saw me rip out an entire side of the border last time) did not preclude me from making a mess of the triangle edge on the top border and having to pull it out and re-do it - knitterly overconfidence take your bow!!

(blocked)
I'm told (admittedly by encouraging female relations) that you forget the pain of childbirth because you have the baby to look at and if that is true (and I have my suspicions) then it is analagous to the production of this blanket. I still do enjoy knitting this pattern but doing two so close together has brought on a touch of the second sock syndrome and I had had enough of the border triangles by the time I finished the 132nd (bearing in mind the 28 I had to rip out). However, the finished product is beautiful if I say so myself and once it has popped through the washing machine and is all blocked out I realise why I am making this. It is perhaps strange that I never spend any time with the finished blankets - the last one came off the blocking towels and was in the recipient's hands within 2 hours, this one will go out in tomorrow's post. One of these days there will be an alphabet blanket that stays with me but not for a little while (hopefully enough time for me to summon up the urge to knit another one).

The thing is that seeing the finished blanket I want to make one for Baby 3 (due in October) becuase it is the nicest gift that I can think to make to give to him/her, not through lack of inspiration (thanks Ravelry) but because it ticks every box, it's machine washable, interesting to knit, big enough to snuggle under and goes with just about every decor .... I'd better go order some more Baby Cashmerino!!

The almost is Peggy's sheep which Mary correctly identified from my last post oh so long ago.

This is the anatomy of a sheep:

to whit - one back, one tummy, one head, four feet, four ears (front and back x 2) and a little tail. I made valiant efforts to sew up Peggy the sheep last night while the blanket was washing but I only got this far:

I have sewn up the ears and the tail on the way to work this morning and I hope to finish tonight after I get home from knitting and then there can be two parcels in the post tomorrow - economy of post office effort.

All this finishing means that an old friend who has been sat in the corner of the sofa watching me is coming back into play - roll on colour!

A bit of a catch up!

It's been a while - life has been taking over the little knitty-sphere which I inhabit in a most distressing way. Happily knit and purl have been restored and I have news and a little progress to share.

This first news is that I have not dissappeared in a rush of muddy water. This is a good thing. All the knitting is safe (you may all now breathe a collective sigh of relief). However, it has been just a tad watery round here recently. I missed all the excitement/frustration as another Biblical downpour swept the country on Friday by working in London and thereby being where I needed to be before the rain hit. At 11.30 in central London the sky was a dark grubby pewter and the street lights had started to come on; when we came out of Court 45 minutes later, it looked like all the water that there has ever been was coming out of the sky to the extent that my barrister phoned chambers and arranged for his clerk to come to meet us with an extra brolly. (I still stepped in a puddle anyway!).

Please pity the Law Society who had chosen that moment to have a fire drill!

Apart from falling over on the tube on the slippy floor (NB to self: when you slip carrying 6 files in a bag on one shoulder you ARE going to wipe-out despite all your best efforts. Next time, don't land on the files - they have corners and they hurt) that was about it - I finished off my day working in steamy sunshine and tootled down to my sister's flat for our planned weekend.

My poor lovely H was stuck a little higher up the country. He works around 20 mins drive from where we live. Friday night it took him 1.5 hrs to get home driving through 6 inches of standing water most of the way. I blithely assured him that he should just hop on the train down to London only for him to discover that no trains were running anywhere at all and the motorway had many miles of stationary traffic. It all got so extreme that the Police were closing the neighbouring villages to through traffic and our village had resumed its island status. After much knashing of teeth he decided to travel down the next day, fortunately without incident.

Still he was lucky it wasn't worse - I have yet to hear quite what happenned to my commuting collegues last Friday but I think they'll have a tale to tell.

Saturday we headed off in brilliant sunshine to see England v India at Lords- yippeee

We watched England warm up in enthusiastic style



And then we went to find India
OK, OK that's only some of the team - the rest of them were practicing batting!
After a fantastic morning's English bowling, the inevitable happenned and after the lunchtime interval demonstration of Archery (sounds completely unrelated to cricket but Lords will be the venue for the Olympic Archery) we had this


We did get some brief cricket breaks in the afternoon:

And when they were playing it was fantastic but mostly it rained and we snoozed (including one guy in front who interestingly slept during the cricket play!)

Now then I promise this is still a knitting blog rather than a weather report and I do have a belated answer to an earlier question - if your husband takes to wearing odd knitting socks you hurry up and finish the second one!


H's latest socks are a 68st simple sock in Regia Nation #5399 on 2.5mm DPNs and he loves them.

I've also learnt a few more of my letters as you see:


I'd hoped to get a bit further this weekend but my aim at present is to finish it by the end of July. Kauni and the Mystery Stole are taking a bit of a back seat until the blanket is finit and then I can go to town!

One final question - what do you think this is?

As easy as..

Well it's not quite ABC but I'm certainly a lot nearer than I was. This is three blocks through the central chart; I've knitted a little bit further so I'm probably 1/3 of the way through the next "row".

In 'knitting spotted in the wild' I have discovered the answer to the unanswered question: What happens if you take too long finishing your husband's latest pair of socks!:

Down the rabbit-hole

I have fallen. Down a rabbit-hole. A deep swirling vortexy type hole. I shall try not to talk about it too much because I know how frustrating it is to hear people talking when you haven't got access and you have to sit there stamping your needles at the computer and wishing you could go and play too. Suffice to say it is wonderful and ifyou want to come and say hello I am Cariemay.

Anyway .....

In knitting news I can reveal that for the first time in recent history a baby has beaten the knitting. I am very pleased to welcome my new cousin, another baby boy whose name also begins with E (do we spot a theme?). If I knit a baby blanket for the next baby in October will that do be a baby boy E?

Anyway, the blanket. I was hoping for a little more of July than I got and Baby E made his arrival on 3rd. I am currently half way through the second row of letters. More work required but on the plus side it's not like he can grow out of it!

Work on the baby blanket has been interuppted by the temptation that is Kauni:

And Mystery Stole 3:

This is the completed Clue 3.

Have a wonderful weekend - I'm off to spend some quality time with an alphabet!

It's a mystery

How this (Sat lunchtime) Became this (Saturday evening)
Which in turn became this (Sunday afternoon)
Mystery Stole 3 has me in its grasping pretty laceweight beaded claws. The pattern is beguiling, it calls to me to complete just one more row, just to the end of this chart and implies that as I knit further I might be able to guess the theme to this pattern.

I've now finished clue 2 and frankly I'm no wiser. H thinks he can see a tree and I think I can see a honeycomb and possibly waves - maybe it's Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden.

Whatever it is it is pretty and the Patons Baby 2ply is working very well as laceweight yarn - I'm using beads in a kind of antique gold colour to stop it being too bridal with all the white!

Kauni has also had a little bit of love and attention recently as an antidote to (a) white laceweight and (b) having to go back to work tomorrow. Pimms works quite well for the latter too!

Hope you all had a good weekend!

Nice weather for ducks

I have a sincere, genuine and heartfelt apology for the people of the West Midlands. At 2.30pm I turned on my washing machine to wash, amongst other things, the mattress protector that must be dry and back on the bed before I can make it up to go to sleep tonight. At 3pm, as the washing machine teetered across the kitchen floor towards its final cycle, it began to rain.

It is still raining.

I appear to have invoked the wrath of the laundry gods.

Oops. As I said; sorry about that.

On the plus side the rain did hold off long enough this morning to allow me to sneak outside with the camera for some progress shots which are not either (a) blurry or (b) blindingly flashy. So what have I been up to? well....

Faithful reader you will know that project monogamy is not my strongest suit. Knitting is fun therefore more knitting is more fun would be my motto. I generally have at least one or two large projects and a whole heap of socks going at any one time.

On Monday afternoon I had nothing on my needles. Nothing. (Please imagine for yourselves horror movie noises of the Jaws/Psycho variety). I can only assume that this was the cause of my viral startitis. And what's more this is not ordinary startitis, this is rainbow startitis - be afraid, be very afraid.

First my beloved Kauni Cardigan ("so pretty").

When not knitting it (and there hasn't been much of that) I sit and stroke it ("oh so pretty"). I love this project. It also inspires project envy in fellow knitters who have been observed in their natural habitat excitedly exclaiming as we gently drift from one colour to the next. I know that I will look like a giant stripy rainbow wearing this cardigan and I love it anyway. It will always make me happy. [Note to self: people on the train give you odd looks if you keep cheeping "ooo it's going purple; no look, this bit's definitely orange!"]

Despite the rain we have been on a few expeditions during the course of the week and for that I needed car knitting. Whilst the idea of taking the Monet Jitterbug to see a Monet painting was tempting, I didn't have time to wind it and I wanted something that didn't involve pattern reading so out popped this:

A rainbow sock for H (he chose the colour himself). If Kauni didn't cure your SAD then this sock certainly does. If you allow for turquoise rather than indigo then you've just about got your Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain.

My startitis appears to be entering a new (and possibly more aggressive stage) as I am about to cast on the second Alphabet Blanket in cream, which as we know if what happens if you spin a rainbow really fast.

I have also signed up for Mystery Stole 3 (which closes tomorrow so be quick). The project colours suggested are white or black or something similar. I have plans to try some Patons Baby 2ply which works out to white laceweight and as I'm a bit behind on the clues I'll need to try to catch up over the weekend.

All this rain does seem to have done some good to the garden and the sunflower seems to like it!

Now then, where did I leave my needles?

A Yarny Summer Holiday

Well the sun was supposed to shine. I was supposed to be having a week off to enjoy the garden, maybe go camping for a couple of nights and certainly do some exploring. Sadly these plans have had to be abandonned as it continues to rain heavily every hour as the showers pass through.

Well what else's a girl to do but curl up, watch people getting very wet at Wimbledon and knit!

So what does this

tell you about my weekend?

It says that I finished these:

My sockpalooza's socks are done - the Spiral Rib knee socks from Interweave in plum coloured Opal.

and... I finished the Tired Roses scarf. Here it is relaxing in the garden in a brief interlude in the rain!

Following a little soak, I pinned it out as much as possible:

and let it dry overnight.

Et voila this morning:
The pattern is essentially a one-skein variation of the Print o the Wave stole made with one skein of 100% silk laceweight from Curious Yarns (currently on sabatical) in their Tired Roses colourway- hence the name! This is an "it's my own invention" type of scarf with the plan to knit until I ran out of yarn - this is what I have left:

so I'm pretty happy with that.

While the scarf was drying I played with my new toy

And discovered the side effects of too much rainbow yarn- you get simply bedazzled by the colours!

Having swatched and got gauge (phew) I'm off to cast on for the real thing!

PS - letting your husband be in charge of the photo shoot for your new scarf can have unexpected photographic results! Here I demonstrate the "posing in the garden window to make sure the scarf is straight posture"

Finally Finished

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present:

Aimee

Finished in all her glory. I am very happy.

It appears that Aimee is a lady with a character; a character appropriate to a lady of that vintage. This is the only reason why I can fathom that she was determined to be character-building - it fits with the blitz spirit!

If the long hours spent repeating "yo sl1 k1 psso" were not enough to teach me patience and determination then seaming in Kid Silk Haze certainly was. And then there is the tale of the neckband.

The pattern as written requires you to oh so carefully pick up and knit 4 rows of reverse stst around the neckline and then cast off loosely. Monday night I settled down, oh so carefully knit those four rows, cast off with a much bigger needle for the looser finish and then pinned together the other shoulder seam.

Slight hitch - it wouldn't go over my head. Oops. Various solutions came to mind - a ribbon tie shoulder, buttons or even doing cunning things to the neckband a la Peggy's dress but they all stemmed from the same starting point - removing 4 rows of KSH knit on 3mm needles. If you've never knit with this stuff then there are two things to know; (1) it is wonderful (2) it is velcro and does not like being ripped back when knit up on very tiny needles.

I admit to a short cut (literally!). I cut one end and then unpicked the neckband from the neck!

I thought about putting a crochet chain around the neckline or even a little picot to match the bottom edge but when I'd seamed up the rest of it I decided it doesn't need it and I actually like it better without, I don't think it needs anything else to look "finished" but I'm well aware that my judgment may be affected by KSH fumes and too much chocolate rocky road so any thoughts are welcome.

Anyway, for anyone that wasn't reading the blog last November (can you believe this was supposed to be my NaNoSweMo sweater - ouch!) the pattern is from Rowan Vintage Style (it may be called Vintage Knits sometimes) and I knit the medium with length added to both the body and the sleeves. The pattern calls for only 4 balls of yarn which might just work if you didn't add extra length - I all probably over half way into the 5th ball and I know other people have mentioned producing stripier versions and being a bit tight on yarn.

The ribbon was from Liberty and is frivolous!

Resisting the Kauni's siren song I have cast on the other half of my tired roses scarf but come rain or more rain, next week I will fall prey to her rainbow delights!

Ticking over

It's raining again. Or rather it's still raining. It's raining the kind of rain that seeps into your very bones and makes you feel as if it has been raining forever and will continue to rain forever.

I have been knitting (and eating ice-cream but we'll concentrate on the knitting). I have been knitting to match the rain; time consuming sleeve knitting, completing all the sl 1, k1, psso repeats that make the lacey panels on Aimee.

However, I have now finished both sleeves and in a change to usual form I blocked out the individual pieces to stretch the lace yesterday. This evening's task is to sew the shoulder seams and knit the neckband. If I get onto the rest of the seaming then all well and good but if not it can wait for tomorrow's knit night.

I really do like Aimee but it has been a bit of a push to the finish because the knitting is not complex enough to keep me really interested (the equivalent to a book you can't put down), nor is it quick stst which doesn't require attention.

If it ever stops raining then I might get a chance to model it for you (fingers' crossed).

In other news I am now onto the second spiral boot sock and I have a lovely long train trip to London for a training course to really get my teeth into it! This pattern (from the latest IK) has everything you could want in a pattern - it has interesting but subtle changes as you go down the leg so it breaks up into natural stages and the pattern itself is nice and memorable.

That and the finished sock looks fab. I'm very impressed with how much yarn there is in a ball of Opal and it may be that I don't need the full two balls and I might squeeze out a pair for myself - time will tell!

Sunshine is promised for the end of the week and next week I have a week off work (supposedly lounging around in the garden!) so I shall try to make good progress on my tired roses scarf this week and then next week I can treat myself to a bout of startitis. Whilst there are more practical projects to start than a wooly cardigan in July I think that Kauni and the next baby blanket are calling to me!

Spoilt Rotten!

Isn't that how all birthdays should be?

We both had a wonderful day yesterday and I can only share with you just the littlest taste of the festivities. The funniest thing of being a joint birthday is how like Christmas it is - you know how people wish each other Merry Christmas so when someone says Merry Christmas to you, you say it back - I'm the same with Happy Birthday. Mum phoned me first thing in the morning to say Happy Birthday and my response was "oh, Happy Birthday too!". Her birthday was in May so I may have been a little late/ early!

Having said that H wrapped my presents in paper which said Merry Christmas which I thought was particularly organised for next year but he assured me that it was a birthday present.

Now if I show you this:

Can you tell what he gave me?

I have the best husband a yarn-fanatic could wish for - look

It's a ball winder and a swift (Note for Dad - the ball winder is the bit in the background, the swift is the wooden cross in the front. You put the yarn hank on the pegs on the swift and thread it to the ball winder and then you turn the handle on the ballwinder and it all winds up nicely).

I am so pleased with it I had to start finding yarn to wind up right away!

Fortunately my sister came to the rescue with her presents to me:

Lovely Lorna's Laces sock yarn - the colourway is Devon and is all the colours of the ocean on a summer's day. And this...

Well this is Koigu (let me hear you say ooooooh) in fabulous shades of orange. There is a little story behind that colour (apart from it being fabulous!). I will be Zee's bridesmaid this year just as she was mine last year. When she was trying on dresses as my bridesmaid she was very taken with a lovely dress in midnight blue. Well she got the dress but in ruby red instead. I love burnt orange and it suits me so when I was trying on dresses to be her bridesmaid I kept making a plea for burnt orange and picking the orange dresses off the racks. We will look lovely in sky blue come the wedding :)!

Thank you sweet sister you choose very well.

The wool that actually got wound up was the leftovers from these:
H's birthday socks, made from Opal of some sort on a 64st round with 2.5mm needles. These are slightly snugger than his other socks but I am informed that the snuggly loose socks meet with approval so I shall probably go back to 68sts for future socks. I am a trixy little wife though! When H unwrapped his parcel he found a ball of yarn (a slightly oddly shaped ball) with a pair of needles with a few rows of garter stitch. I told him he was to learn to knit as his birthday present and he dutifully sat down and started to knit.

After 5 or 6 sts I told him he needed more yarn and so he should throw the ball of yarn across the room to unwind a bit of yarn. As he did the corner of a sock popped out and the penny dropped! I have told him he is the fasted sock knitter ever though - 6 sts and he's done!

We had a veritable flood of birthday cards and good wishes from all our friends and relations - my boss gave me a bottle of wine and my secretaries gave me cards and some beautiful pale pink gerberas which have brought a little summer into our house. I went out to lunch with me team and out to supper with my husband and all in all it was pretty perfect.

I also have a little birthday treat waiting for me to do some winding (I'm trying to be good and do some finishing first!).

Those of you who follow the knit-bloggy world will know what this is as a certain young lady has I think made it the next must-knit. I was entranced by the version just recently completed over at Purlwise and I'm glad I was because this wool is far far prettier in real life than any photo can show you and every colour in the yarn is just perfect for me. I have to finish Aimee and my tired roses scarf before I cast on for this, the next Alphabet Blanket and a few other projects currently up my (capacious) sleeves so for the moment I sit and look at it, and stroke it, and hug it if I feel in need of brightening up!

Now, to conclude the world's longest post, some answers. Korinthe asked where I got the point protectors for my DPNs. The answer is Father Christmas but I believe he may have shopped here. They are genius and I can't believe we ever managed without them!

Marly wanted to know about the sheep dress - it's from Debbie Bliss' Baby Knits book and the Amazon reference is here but you may be able to find it more locally. The alphabet blanket also came from that book and it has some really lovely baby and toddler patterns in it but there are a few errors so it is worth checking the errata on her website.

It is finally the weekend so I have films to watch, knitting to do and kittens to name - have a good weekend

Double Trouble

Once upon a time, Long long ago (well not that long ago) there were two Mummies. One in the North (brr, chilly) and one a bit further South but not as far south as she could have been and somewhat to the east. Both (by this time) had a little baby in their arms. One baby looked like Captain Pugwash, the other looked quite cute and baby-like. Both dearly loved and the apples of their father's eyes (we were good and innocent and mostly asleep at that stage).

Fast-forward 27 years and by some miracle both babies grew up, survived school and university, found each other and got married - double trouble and double the birthday!

Thank you all for the wonderful birthday wishes for the pair of us, we have had a fantastic day and I am going to go and enjoy every last second. I'll tell you all about it and answer some outstanding questions tomorrow!

Just a few more hours

Well actually it's more like 15 minutes and counting.

15 mins until the end of my 26th year. H and I have our join birthday tomorrow so there really was only one activity for this evening - make 2 birthday cakes!

Now H is a bit of a Celtic fan. This is after all a man who got married wearing Celtic shorts under his kilt. A Celtic badge cake is a bit of a challenge because of the fiddly drawing but green and white stripes - that I can do:

The cake is green:

And the filling is white (well cream at least). I am not the world's best cake decorater and I probably should leave the drawing to H who is much better than me. However, a cake surprise tradition is a cake surprise tradition and I hope he likes it: Despite there only being the two of us it still seems important to have two birthday cakes so I made a chocolate cake for me too (I cheated on the icing - it came from a Betty Crocker tub but there are limits to how many cakes I can make and ice in one evening). My creative inspiration for the decoration was these cupcakes at VeganYumYum .

I don't have half her talent but I have made a valiant effort to replicate both the tired roses scarf and Aimee as my current projects!

26 seems to have been a rather quiet year after 25. I got married, bought a house and had appendicitis at 25, but as H reminded me, he has changed career at 26 and I have helped him do that and to him that was the best thing I did this year (he hasn't seen his cake yet!)

Tomorrow is B-day which at present involves going out to lunch with my work colleagues (hurrah!) and going out for a lovely curry supper with H (double hurrah).

I hope you have a wonderful midsummer's day