Sneaking up to Santa Time

I'm at that slightly frustrating time in the making calendar for someone who loves to blog. It's nearly Christmas. I'm doing lots of making, but it's mainly for gifts. And I hate to spoil the surprise for my friends. At the same time I don't like to leave a blank here either. So I guess I'll post the occasional sneak peak.

This migrated from my knitting needles to my blocking board this morning, via a warm soak in the bathroom basin. Tomorrow I'm hoping to turn it into its final form.

 

Just to complicate matters, it seems that either my computer or my internet connection doesn't want to play nicely this morning. So I may need to shift my focus there. That's not nearly as much fun as making gifts!

Better than Expected

This piece has a long and somewhat odd history. It's turned out better than it deserved to, really.

It started with a lovely lace-weight alpaca yarn, which unfortunately only came in muted blue and purple tones. My preference is for brighter shades, but the fibre was nice enough that I overcame my reluctance. I started on a feather and fan lace scarf. After about half a metre of knitting I flagged and stopped.

The project sat in my to-do box for many months. I pulled it out a few weeks ago. I felt bad about it, but couldn't convince myself to restart the lace knitting. On the other hand, I respected what I had done too much to pull it out. Then this idea popped into my head. Could I turn it into something else?

First I added a bit more length in garter stitch. The next step was to block the lace to make it look its best. That happened yesterday morning. As soon as it was blocked I was happy to have saved it. I stitched the short end of the garter stitch section to the side of the feather and fan section. Here's the result.

I like it. In fact I almost love it. Yes, I would prefer it to be a bit brighter, but I'm sure I'll wear and enjoy it as it is. And I have enough of this yarn left to try overdyeing it to spark it up a bit. There's a 100 meter skein in the dye pot as I'm typing. This story will be continued. 

Look What I Found

While I was sorting my stash of quilting fabrics the other day I came across this.

It was intended as a cushion cover. I got as far as knitting it and then abandoned it. If I remember correctly I was also demonstrating cables for a class at the time. I've read advice at various times about putting warm colours in the living room in winter time. At this stage of my interior decorating life I'd be happy to have things relatively clean and tidy, let alone having seasonal colour accents. So I'm not going to be using this cushion cover any time soon. There's a picture winging its way through cyberspace as I type. Hopefully a friend of mine will be happy to use it. Otherwise I'll have to choose between ripping it out and re-using the wool or sending it to the Op shop unfinished.

Protection

There are so many difficult things in life from which I cannot protect myself or the people I love, but there are also so many little cute bits of happiness in the world. Here's one:

I love to knit. My knitting goes everywhere with me. I like long straight knitting needles for some projects, even though I'm now just as comfortable with circular needles or dpns. Long needles inevitably stick out of my carry bag. Sometimes I bump into people. Bumping into people while carrying long pointy sticks is not a good thing. These little balls of soft firm usefulness push onto the ends of my knitting needles. Now I don't have to worry about damaging a stranger at the shopping centre when I lose track of exactly where my knitting bag is amongst a crowd of shoppers. And my knitting is less likely to slide off my needles. It doesn't solve the problems of the world, but it's something!

Where Are They Now?

The baby booties are all knitted up. I decided I need to block them somehow. There are a few oddly stretched looking stitches as a result of the short-row shaping which forms to foot of the bootie. So, here they are floating in my bathroom basin.

When they've had a good soak, I'll tug them around a bit and see if I can get those stitches to sit nicely. Then I'll have to find somewhere to let them sit to dry slowly. There's a row of eyelets around the ankle, so a little bit of ribbon is also on the list. 

Booties

I'm hoping to finish this pair of baby booties today.

The combination of 8-ply yarn, 4 mm dpns and a small item is feeling rather clumsy in my hands, so I've been procrastinating, but now they're just about done. The pattern is from Yarn Thrower. The yarn is leftover from my new bright blue baggy beret. There's also a bottom-up version of this pattern. I may try that next. Or I might cast on another pair of socks for me. I turned the heater on for the first time yesterday--winter weather is coming on.

Now, back to the knitting and I should have these done very soon.

Unhappy Needle

My planned ruffle was not a success. I guess I tried to force too many stitches into too small a space. This was the result.

I don't think it can be fixed, so I'll need to replace it. Meanwhile I've ripped out the offending stitches and am back to a plain garter stitch scarf. I guess it will have to be a crochet ruffle.

Done

The Noro Sekku triangle scarf is done.

I'm still a bit unsure about it. With all those different colours it should be versatile, but there isn't an overall colour story that appeals to me. I guess I'll just have to try it and see.

Transitions

Last weekend I was calling this my penance knitting.

Now I've knitted my way through the muddy-purple, tomato-red, mint- and kermit-green. I'm starting to get flecks of blue. A couple of people have commented on how Japanese the colour scheme is! I think it's growing on me.

Beading Meets Knitting

I'm knitting away at a mystery project--it's a gift and I don't want to spoil the surprise. But there's no reason I shouldn't show how I'm keeping track of my stitches.

These stitch markers are basically just like an earing, but without the hook. Winding the wire like this minimises the chance of the yarn snagging in the marker. They really help me to keep count and show up any mistakes before it's too late to fix them easily. 

Today

What to do when a morning meeting has been twice as long and twice as difficult as anticipated . . . Go to your local cafe; order a nice lunch and cold drink; sit and sip and eat and knit and knit and knit. One stitch at a time--as if nothing else in the world exists--at least for a little while. You can become immersed in the knitting like this:

After a while you have something like this:

. . . and a slightly better perspective on life in general.

As It Comes

I'm knitting away at the Noro Sekku yarn in odd moments of the day. I'm knitting from the centre of the ball, so I don't know what's coming next. The stripes should get narrower as the triangle gets wider. All of that gives it enough interest to keep me happy.

And when I get tired of dealing with twisty snarly slubby yarn, then I know it's time to put it down and do something else.

Ruffles

I've featured mostly beading here in these summer days. It seems to be the perfect type of craft for hot weather, since it's easy to do no matter how warm my hands get. But we have had some milder days and I've been knitting away at some of the ruffled wristies I have requests for. The question with ruffles is "how much is enough?".

I make the ruffles by doubling the number of stitches in each of the final rows. There's one row difference between these two. I decided that either might appeal, though my personal preference is for as much ruffle as I can get. So there's a pair made with a little less and a little more. I'll see how they go.

Today is going to be hot. I need to do some more spinning before I can tackle the other wristies on the list. I need grey and black. I'll wait for a really cool day before I sit down to that task.

Stitch by Stitch

I'm continuing to knit the mohair tubular scarf. Here's where I'm up to this morning.

It's a simple knit: around and around; one stitch at a time. Every stitch is the same--and yet every stitch is different. That's the fascination for me. I love the steady repetition and the subtle colour changes.

 . . . by the way, this is knit on 3.5 mm needles, so on my screen at least the pic is bigger than life size.

Pretty Plain

This garter stitch square will be a pretty face washer.

A crochet border will dress it up just enough I think. Last week I made one entirely in crochet with one of my little flowers to add a bright spot. Unfortunately my muscles didn't enjoy the constant repetition of the one stitch--there's a twisting motion in the wrist involved in crochet which gets wearing after a while. I've had to be careful since then not to do more than a bit at a time until things settle down. That's a pity because often it's the meditative rhythm of the work that I enjoy.

Trimmings

I finished the "easy and blue" scarf yesterday. It's a simple triangle, so really not much to show, except that I had just enough yarn left over to have some fun. Here's how it ended up.

And my conclusion is that next time I'll try some different shaping. The size I got with 100g of 5ply yarn is just the right enough of warmth for this time of year, but with a simple triangle it needs a pin to secure it. I'd like it to be self-sufficient--so I need longer ends to wrap around my neck.

Test Run

I'm checking out some ideas for warm weather knitting. One idea is to make some shopping bags.

This sample is done with kitchen string on 8mm needles, but I have some hand-dyed cotton yarns to use for the real thing.

Growing Things

I've mentioned my weeding efforts several times recently. One thing I know is that nature hates a vacuum. Unless I want another crop of weeds growing in my newly cleared soil, I'd better get something else in there to take their place. To that end I've taken some cuttings of "pigface" from a local garden. They've been in little pots on my window sill for several weeks now. I'm really not much of a gardener, but I'm hoping these will take off soon. I'm also planning to use layers of newspaper and bark chip for mulch. 

Meanwhile, I've been knitting away at the "easy and blue" shawl and it too is growing. I started with three stitches and have been increasing one stitch in every row. Now there are 126 stitches so things are slowing down. I'm hoping to finish it in the next few days and put it to immediate use.

Reward

By the time I'd completed the dreaded paperwork which I'd set myself to tackle yesterday I'd used up half the day and most of my available energy. I have yet to unpack the car after the market, and somehow my knitting bag got mixed up with that stuff on Monday so my "easy and blue" shawl wasn't available. I know it's crazy but opening the front door and walking maybe twenty metres to get it just seemed like too much effort! So I cast on something else.

It's another little wristie. This is some hand-dyed baby wool that I wound off the skein to use in some of the open-textured scarves I made for the market. So it was sitting in the basket next to my armchair. I noticed at the market that I could do with some more wristies, so they're on their way. Not that there's likely to be much demand for them in the warmer months, but I don't enjoy making the same thing over and over, so maybe this way I can slowly build up enough to have a good range for next year.

Warming Up

I knitted up a couple of scarves from these yarns yesterday.

They're done on 15mm needles. I really wanted the interesting texture of the yarn to be a feature. Plus the colours are strong and bright. The wool is not my usual fine merino. That's good for the appearance of the yarn and the dye takes beautifully, but I really don't enjoy working with it. The feeling of the fibre in my hands is a big part of the pleasure of spinning and knitting for me. So there's a dilemma.

As for the weather, we're having a bit of a cold snap. Hopefully that will mean a better chance of selling some scarves at the market this weekend.