Nominations

It has just come to my attention after browsing my sitemeter that someone has nominated me for a Dorset Cereals Little Blogger Award.

I would just like to say a big 'Thank You!' to whoever the lovely person who nominated me was, I only have one vote but for someone to actually nominate me has made me very happy.

I hope your all having a good Monday.

P.S. There is a little linky thing on the right to vote if you would like.

CrackSilk Addiction

I have heard of many knitters who have suffered from this terrible addiction, however, I was never informed of how quickly it can take hold!

These beauties all arrived during the past week, six balls in Jacob, four in Fondant, and two in cream.

Why all the Kidsilk Haze you say? Especially why so much when I still have 6 balls of Kidsilk Aura waiting to be knitted up?

Well they were reduced, by at least £2 each, most a bit more then that, which at over £7 a ball each normally was a bargain I couldn't pass up, especially when I have some projects in mind for them.

The six Balls of Jacob are going to be this:

This is the Effie sweater from my new Kim Hargreaves Precious book and I think it is simply gorgeous! I have some lovely smart trousers that it would look great with in the dark brown I bought.

This lovely little cardigan, Precious from the Heartfelt collection, is going to made from the Fondant colourway, it calls for beading also but I am not entirely sure I want to add beads, if I do they will be silver, I don't want too much pink! This is specifically being made to accompany a suit dress that I own and have no jacket for, but I think it will go nice with anything black or cream too.

The cream I don't have a picture of the pattern but it can be seen here on Ravelry, I intend to make the Anisette shawl. I came across this when I was looking at shawls that people who participate in the HPKCHC have made and I added it to my queue as soon as I saw it. It looks so delicate and beautiful, the sort of thing to cherish and keep for special occasions.

This is the Calm pattern from Kim Hargreaves' Heartfelt collection which I am going to e making from the Kidsilk Aura. I am going to hopefully cast this on next and will be knitting it in the round instead of straight and seaming. This will be my first sweater AND my first time changing a pattern from flat to round, so it should make for an adventure!!

Creativity:

I have been getting creative on the tinkering of the blog, what do you think?

I like the colour, but I am considering removing the bows, they look cute without any content, but a little too much with all the other stuff.

Let me know!

New...

I broke out my mad photoshop skills to make a little collage of some of the new things I have added to my knitting stash, voila!

As you can see I got myself the new Kim Hargreaves Winter Blooms pattern book along with the Precious collection from the autumn, I am itching to start making some of the things from these so watch out for some of the patterns in the future.

I also got a big bottle of Scentless Soak after I tried a little tester, it is really difficult for me to find soaps that I can use because I have extremely sensitive skin so it is nice to know that my knitting wont suffer because of my allergies. I got this huge bottle from one of my favourite online shops P2tog. I would recommend everyone go for the big bottle, because it is only a few pounds more then the smaller bottle which about a quarter or the amount of soap! Crazy!

Also incoming has been some more Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn, they are in Cranberry and Powder Blue colourways and they were purchased from Pure Purl, another fab shop that I have mentioned before.

I have slipped in pictures of all my notions and needles nicely organised in a cool toolbox that my sister gave me, being organised like that inspired me to do the same to my stash so all my complete balls of yarn are now in zip lock baggies to make sure they don't get damaged and are kept separate from my part used balls. The part used balls live in my Cath Kidston knitting bag along with WIP's, and the tidy stash lives in a spare laundry sack I had lying around. I do like being all tidy (I even organised all the photos I have for the blog into the type of project etc. on my computer, now it is super easy to find things!)

Finally I have a few paint swatches, my bedroom is dark red with that creamy/tan colour on the other walls and I am going to lighten them up so it is more strawberries and cream tones, I am thinking the middle shade, as I don't want to go too white, the middle one is quite like clotted cream in colour, maybe a teensy bit lighter. I couldn't resist the Keep Calm and Cast On poster, which I downloaded from the Laylock website, I am going to frame it and put it on my nice walls when they are finished.

The same website also has a great little stationary set I downloaded a couple of weeks ago called Knit Love, it is a PDF file full of great stuff which you download and print out when you need it, it includes bookmarks, gift bags, book plates, tags, belly bands and needle cases all with a knitting theme, and all great for if you are giving a knitted item as a gift, definitely worth taking a look at for a little something to brighten your day!

What's new with you?

I do declare...

it is time for an update!

Firstly the projects i have completed and am currently working on.

Remember how all the way back here I may have mentioned working on something? Well they were finished a few weeks ago now but here they are, my first ever completed pair of socks!

They are the Bellatrix socks by Monkey Toes and I love them. They are part of a triplet of sock patterns each representing a character from the Harry Potter series. I knit them up using my Socks that Rock yarn that I think resembled candy floss while in it's wrapper and they are definitely sweet on my feet, they keep them nice and toasty!

I originally knit them to be my Charms homework for the HPKCHC in January and I think I could have finished them if I hadn't left the first one to the side for a couple of weeks with just the kitchnering of the toe to complete. The second one knit up really quickly after I had mastered that technique.

Anyways the class project was to make the teacher laugh, and below is the image I had planned in order to do just that, something tells me that Ms. Lestrange would not like her black socks suddenly being pastel coloured!

Next up is the only project I managed to finish for February (I had some technical problems during the month, my village seemed to be denied proper internet access for a while there, but it is a project I am proud of because I had to do actual maths and things, no just following a pattern here oh no!

These are a wrist length version of Ysolda Teague's Farinelli opera gloves.

I had been drooling over these since I saw them on Ysolda's blog and had bought the pattern intending to make the full length one's when I had a reason to. Well I decided to get a little creative and use some of the yellow Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK that I had sitting in my stash to make a smart formal pair of gloves to match my Haven scarf and my lovely pale yellow handbag.

The pattern actually calls for fingering weight yarn so I had to actually knit a gauge swatch for the first time, in like, the whole time I have been knitting, I normally just don't bother, and I had to go down from 2.75mm needles to 2mm needles to accommodate. If I am honest the swatching was quite fun because I got to use my Karatstix knitters rule for the first time since I got it a few weeks ago (to see it click the link under knitters rule, I don't want to make this too photo heavy).

After sorting that out I had to figure out the whole where to start in the pattern, well I started with the final sleeve pattern repeat (rounds 145+) except I made sure that the pattern end came to a point like it does on the top of the hand by reversing the final two rows of the hand pattern before starting the repeat and after adding a very straight forward but attractive edging pattern.

I think they have come out really well and they fit really snugly and look smart with my handbag. They were a pain however because the reason I knit them for the class was because the project was to knit something you hate, and I hate knitting thumbs and fingers on mittens and gloves, I can never seem to get the casting on of extra stitches and picking up new ones right and it drives me nuts. I am however rather pleased with the outcome of this one.

Definitely an 8/10, and I will be knitting the full length ones in future!

My next finished object is my first attempt at making a beret style hat, and I am not happy with it.

I made this Grace Lace Beret out of the Ethical Twist Alpaca and Wool blend that I got from Tricot to try out. The wool is quite nice but I am not sure that I would buy it again, I think if I did I would get the Baby Alpaca option instead as that seemed a little softer and had more of a fluffy texture then a coarse one.

I love the way it looks, the pattern really has shown up well, but the problem is that in order to do that I had to lightly block it, I dampened it with water like I have all my other forays into the art of blocking and it grew in size, the main body of the hat would be fine in the large size but the ribbing has lost all its elasticity. If anyone knows how I can fix this then let me know, if not I will just have to find a large headed friend to gift it to.

The hat was for another HPKCHC class, this one Care of magical creatures for this month, and it is representative of an Acromantula web (giant man eating spider). I am quite chuffed with it as representation of the subject, I just wish I could wear it. Maybe my next one will be more successful.

Now last but not least for this post, the project I am currently working on is the Susie's Reading Mitts pattern.

This picture is actually from Wednesday and I have since completed the above mitt and am over half way on the second one. I am using up the Katia merino DK that I bought to make a hat to accompany my Pink Bella's Scarf as I had gone off the idea of a matching hat and this is a perfect way to bust some of the stash I have (which was the project for the HPKCHC class, banishing some stash) in order to make way for a couple of things that have come in over the past couple of days.

It is a really quick simple knit and I have been wearing my completed one already, It is the perfect length for when I am typing etc and keeps my hands nice and warm. I have bad circulation in my hands and wrists so the extra length on the wrist is also great. I am hoping that the second one will be finished by tomorrow!

Coming up, random things I have been up to and some of the recent additions to my knitting corner!

So swiftly...

Ok, so I have about 5 different posts I need to post, all nicely typed up and awaiting uploading, and I know I really should do things in the order that I actually made them but I really cannot wait to show you this one because I am SO PROUD of myself for making this!

I spent Friday night and most of Saturday sawing drilling and sanding and produced this amazing contraption:

I made myself a yarn swift!!

It only cost me about £7!! How amazing is that!

I was never one for manual labour and never really tried very hard in woodwork classes at school but I have always been someone who can do something if they think about it, and so, I did an internet search and found these instructions on how to make your own swift.

I did version one, and I love it, my only problem so far was finding a hex bolt the right size, so the one I got has a rounded end instead of a flat hex end (this is also the reason my base is slightly different from the one in the tutorial, I had to get creative with some spare dowel to make it still balanced and yet raised up enough to accommodate the lack of flat ended bolt)

I have yet to use it to actually wind anything, but I have put a few skeins of yarn on it just to give it a spin :D

Aaaaand...

I'm back!!

A month away in which I have done much job searching and reading and getting frustrated at my broken internet and little knitting, I am finally able to return, my Internet provider has finally bestowed upon my village adequate broadband speeds to be able to load Google (yes for a while there it was so slow it took 20 minutes to load Google, insane ja?) I blame the new housing developments in my village, we have 3 new housing area's, 3!! And obviously they hadn't upgraded the exchange enough to manage these.

Now, unfortunately, I mean what I said, I haven't done a huge amount of knitting, I have finished 2 projects and am just over half way on another, so without further ado, prepare for the update!

The Hurricane Mittens:

Pattern Name: Swirly Hurricane Mitts

Yarn Used: Malabrigo Worsted in Ravelry Red and Blue Graphite

Needle Size: 4mm and 5mm Circ's in Magic Loop

Problems: I had a little trouble when incorporating the thumb when it came to the swirlies, I had to do some quick thinking and guesswork, it worked out fine though!

Modifications: I have incorporated a whole thumb and when I get round to it I will make them into flip tops. I have also added a longer cuff.

Skills Learnt:To make the smaller size first

Score: 6/10 as they aren't quite finished yet.

Comments: I did indeed rip out my first mitten on these and reknit it in the smaller size, and I am so glad that I did, they are nice and snug on my hand and when I am not feeling so lazy will hopefully keep my finger tips nice and cozy too.

A project I hadn't even started last time I blogged is up next,

The Mum slippers:

Pattern Name: French Press Felted Slippers

Yarn Used: Cascade 220 in Chocolate

Needle Size: 10mm

Problems: My washing machine is front loading and I decided that the locking mechanism combined with the lack of control with being able to get the slippers out when I needed to meant I should hand-felt these. These are the first time I have felted and were a challenge but came out fine.

Modifications: They don't have any buttons yet because I haven't found any I like.

Skills learnt: Felting!! I hand felted them by soaking in boiling water in the sink and then rubbing them against a cooling rack as well as rubbing with my hands and with a potato masher for more accuracy. Then i would dunk them in ice water to get them to shrink a bit. They were still a bit big after fully felting so I then dunked them in boiling water again and put them in the pre-heated tumble drier on hot for bouts of about 15 minutes until they were the right size for my Mum, this meant they were a little late for her birthday but she still loves them.

Score: 8/10

Comments: I am rather tempted to make some of these for myself, my Mum loves them and the sock stop which I got from p2tog to make them non-slip is great, and I have plenty of it so I think slippers will be a good present for people!

I have one more thing that I am working on, but I haven't had a chance to take any pictures yet, but hopefully I will soon!!

Slow Coach

Ach! I did it again!

This post was supposed to have been a few days ago, but I went and got distracted, time flies when you have nothing to do it seems.

SO!

Remember the snow from my last post? And how cute my red wellies looked in it? Well check out how they looked a few days after that!

The snow got quite a bit deeper for a few days there, I had to wear 3 pairs of walking socks when I went out, and my feet were still cold! I am really not used to this kind of weather.

On the plus side look how pretty the garden looked, it's Narnia!

(Note, that light is actually only about to my knee, not a full blown Narnia lamp in the middle of nowhere, but that is still thick for this country)

Now, what else kept me from posting, aahhh yes, Ms. Charlaine Harris and her wonderful Sookie Stackhouse books.

This picture of books 3-6, but I now have all of them, because when I went out the other day I had to get 7, 8 and 9, I just had to. After reading books 1 and 2 I decided to wait to get the others, well I waited long enough for the postie to bring them, but I couldn't wait for the next ones I really couldn't, they are just great. I only feature books that I really really like on this blog so that gives you an idea of how much I like them, they completely gripped me, I literally put down one after finishing it and had to pick up the next one, I stayed awake until 4am to finish one of the books and had to stop myself from staying up any later then that to start the next. They have just the right balance of humour, grit, and make believe that they go down nice and easy like a glass of cold milk. Perfecto!

Now I just have to wait until May for the next one, though I do keep reading the snippets of the first chapter that are available on Ms. Harris' website.

Obviously the Sookie books have a TV series to go with them and I may have come across series 2 of that show online somewhere *ahem* and sat and watched all 12 episodes one after the other twice now, including repeating episode 9 at 26 minutes into the episode just to fully take in how pretty Mr. Skarsgard, aka Eric, is in the buff, which allowed for some knitting time :D (knitting while reading only leads to dropped stitches, read on for an example of this)

The main thing I have been knitting is these:

I have only finished one as you can see, but do not fear! This is not a case of the One Mitten Syndrome!! I have actually cast on the second one and it is about one third complete, I am only taking a break from it to update this actually.

These are the Hurricane Mittens pattern which was written to compliment that hat I featured a couple of posts ago. I have done them in an opposite colour scheme to add a bit of interest and so far I am not sure about them, the second mitt I have actually started in the smaller size, as the first one doesn't fit very well, it is a bit loose, so if I prefer the smaller size I will be frogging this one and redoing it. I have also added a full thumb which isn't in the pattern and I am intending to add a flip top to make the mitts changeable between fingerless and full mitts.

I have also... wait for it...

FINISHED my Bella's Cable Scarf in purple for my sister!! This scarf has been on the needles since the beginning of september so it is a huge relief to have it cast off and wrapped up in some nice paper waiting for January the 23rd.

Here is a little shot just before I wrapped it, note, no needles anywhere! So happy about that! Especially as this is where the dropped stitches when reading occurred, I made a mistake in the cable and frogged back 8 rows to fix it and in doing so managed to drop 6 stitches back a couple more rows, it was very frustrating, but now it is all done.

I was going to do a FO report on this one, but I have knitted the pattern before, so I will just remind you of what I used, I knit my own pattern on 10mm needles with Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino yarn in shade 13. I used about 3 and a half balls of the stuff and it took forever, but it is a really nice open scarf and is really long and should wrap around little sister's neck plenty to keep her snug. If I could change anything I would probably slip the last stitch on each row to make it a little neater.

Right my last crafty persuit of the past could of days is one I am rather chuffed with. It came about when I got these through the post:

I had completed my Knit Pro needle set, and they needed a home, the tin I was keeping all my knitting stuff in wasn't very organised at all. So I whipped up this new nice safe home for them.

I think it looks a little like a clutch handbag, but it rolls out like this:

As you can see there are spaces for everything. I made it from that lovely red striped fabric I have used before (all my stuff matches) and some plain cream cotton for the lining and some dense sew in interfacting for rigidity, and I basically had a look at the ones available to buy and whipped up the perfect combination of all the ones out there already.

Here we have my needles from 3mm through to 6mm tips, and a pocket for my fixed circular needles which are sizes 2mm to 2.75mm. As you can see if you look closely I had to make the pockets for up to the 5mm size shorter to accommodate the smaller needle tips that I have in those sizes.

And on the other size I have pockets for the needles up to 10mm in diameter and then I have little pockets for my cables (the idea for this I borrowed from the Della Q interchangeable needle cases) and they lay nicely over the larger needle pockets so that it all fits. in the folded out picture you can also see I made a zipped pocket to fit into the middle seam to hold bits and bobs like stitch markers and point protectors and crochet hooks. A simple velcro fastening holds everything together.

I think it looks quite smart, it used things I already had around the house so has saved me the £25 it would have cost to buy one and it has already had plenty of use. Good all round I think!

Going on a treasure hunt...

Yesterday morning I was woken by a lovely sound, the doorbell, the postie was bringing me some packages! So I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs, I couldn't find any keys, so annoying, I had to run upstairs and get them from my handbag, by the time I got downstairs the postie had gone. This is where my detective skills came into play, I could see footprints in the back garden. I sensed a hunt for my packages!

I went and put on my red wellies that I got for christmas and went out into the snow

The footsteps were leading down towards the path so I followed them

They went past the garage so on I went, I was sure they were heading for the greenhouse.

They were! However, there seemed to be some confusion and they went back on themselves, I tried the greenhouse door and it was frozen shut, 180 turn and following I go again

When I was passing the back of the garage I noticed these steps out of sync! The packages were under the table!!

I was far too excited then to take pictures so I just rescued the 3 packages and went back into the warm.

So what were they? Well the first came from a lovely website called Pure Purl. They have lots of the nicer brands of yarn that I find it difficult to find on many other websites. The package was wrapped so prettily I almost didn't want to undo it, but I did of course.

I just have to draw your focus to this for a second, it is a badge! It is safely pinned onto my coat at the moment :) Now to the yarn pron!

Malabrigo Sock, in Cote D'Azure. It is a gorgeous blue and I am thinking of turning it into Ysolda's Damson shawl but I think it will stay in the skein for a while because it is just so pretty!

Now package number 2, remember I kept slipping little hints about receiving a package from the US? Well I got this! It is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock in Goody Goody, I absolutely ADORE the colours, I love pastels, and I am thinking of using it to make Bellatrix socks for my homework in HPKCHC.

Last but not least is some more knit pro needle tips, some fixed circulars, 2 crochet hooks for dropped stitches and some soak wash all from the lovely lady at P2tog. I nearly had the complete set after receiving these (more in my next post, later)

So after that haul I sat and appreciated my stash a little and my needles, and I got a bit creative and decided to sew something up, more in my next post which should be along shortly after this one :)

Happy New Year!

(there is knitting stuff further down if you'd like to miss out the new years stuff :))

A couple of days late, but better then never!

Man am I glad that 2009 is over, I have had some good times this year, I taught myself to knit and found a whole new world with lots of new people for me to talk to. I graduated from University. I left a job I had been in for 5 years, one which I had been miserable in for those 5 years and was liberated.There were bad times also and I am going to put those behind me, every year as the clock counts down to zero and I am alone with no-one to kiss I tell myself that this year I will make sure that I will put myself first, that I will vet men for any traces of being too selfish or too immature to be able to handle a real relationship, and for lacking the backbone to stand up and tell me the truth. This year this is even more important to me then the last, after being careful about who I gave my heart to this year I found that the man embodied all of those traits.

This year I have decided will truly be about me. If I happen to meet a man along the way, then he can come along for the ride, but I will still make sure that I leave enough room in my life for me to be happy. I am tired of waking up in the morning and not feeling happy with my lot, and really, although I am unemployed and heartbroken, I have my family and my health and my knitting :)

So with that in mind, a couple of resolutions:

I will learn to do some new knitting things, just now I have ordered yarn for my first jumper, I have also done my first piece of colourwork today (more later). So this year is for teaching myself new things. I would really like to be able to write a knitting pattern that I can put up for sale too.

I will try and be more healthy, already I am eating more fruit and vegetables, I don't drink very much fizzy drinks so that isn't much of a problem but I do love puddings, so I am hoping to off set those a little.

I hope to be able to read all the books on the list on my wall, it is around 60 books but I think I can do it.

I would like to be happy. My current situation leaves me without many of the things that have made me unhappy in the past, like the pressures of studies and working, bills and rent and paying for food, I hope I can use this time without as many stresses to be calm and happy, and not get wound up about so many things.

Those are just a few things, and there are more, but I am waffling so I am going to head on over to the knitting content.

First, my first piece of colourwork ever!

It is the Hurricane Hat, and I have used my two different shades of Malabrigo merino worsted to knit it up (the dark colour looks black here but it is the blue I have shown before) and so should go nicely with my coat. My first finished object of 2010! It is nice that it is something for me for a change. I knit it as a project for the HPKCHC in Arithmancy, it had to be a pattern with spirals on it.

The pattern is actually just knit in one colour, but I chose to make it a bit more interesting by adding the extra colour, when the pattern called for purl stitches to make up the swirl I simply knit that stitch in the red. I used the intarsia method so that i didn't have to carry the yarn across and impede the stretchiness of the fabric.

Pattern name: Hurricane Hat

Yarn used: Malabrigo worsted in Blue Graphite and Ravelry Red, I used a tiny amount of red and I am guessing less then half the blue!

Needle size: I went up to a 5mm circ.

Problems: None, the pattern repeat was really easy!

Modifications: Colour and needle size.

Skills learnt: Intarsia, I am also going to convert it into some mittens.

Knit again?: yes it is a really nice hat, hopefully have a pic of it on later in the week.

Score: 8/10, If i did it again the colourwork would be neater.

I am still waiting on some of the yarns and needles that I ordered (and have just ordered 2 types more, some more Rowan Kidsilk Aura for Kim Hargreaves' Calm and some Malabrigo Sock for Ysolda's Damson) but I got a couple through the post today!

YarnAddict Yarns Exotic Sock in emerald.

YarnAddict yarn Silky merino lace in silver.

These were a couple of reduced yarns, the green sock to commemorate my HPKCHC sorting which i think i will knit into the Nagini socks and the silver to attempt a shawl.

My mum also got me a knitting magazine which I forgot to photograph but it is great! It is called Verena Knitting and has over 50 patterns in it and only cost about £4!! I usually pay £6 for the knitter and get no where near that many!