...the lace knitting bug, that is. Some of you may remember that I started Birch ages ago but didn't get much beyond the cast on as my circular needles were so obviously inferior to the task. What's that? Who blames the tools? Well, since then I've invested in a pair of Addi circulars from Get Knitted (Attention all UK Knitters - check out the gorgeous Koigu while you're there!), ripped back all 299 stitches, cast on all 299 stitches again, complete with stitch markers every 10 stitches and lace-knitted for England...
As you can see, England probably feels a bit let down but that little ruffle represents simply hours of work. My tongue has been poking out of the side of my mouth nearly all week as I knit 2tog, yarn over and count and count and count. One more row? Well, it's nearly 1 o'clock at night and as I'm averaging about one hour per row at the moment, perhaps I'd better not. I'm hoping to get a little quicker by dint of the fact that there are less stitches per row the further I knit. I'm loving the Kid Silk Haze - so soft, so fluffy, so girly!
A real treat came in the post today:
I've only had time for a quick read through, but first impressions count don't they? I love the styling of the mag. - several cute little hats and quirky outfits. A few of the designs are calling out to me, Edda in Kid Classic, Kirk in Polar and, of course, Fern in Kid Silk Haze. I'm a sucker for anything that carries my surname.
Of course, all this wintry bounty has coincided with a definite upturn in the weather which is tropical to say the least - c'est la vie!
Got to go now, a little pink ruffle is calling my name....
I chose to knit Picot from Denim People as part of the Denim People Knitalong organised by Polly and Eva. Thanks to you both for organising it.
I finished sewing it last night after washing and drying that funny old denim yarn. I've washed the last of the blue from my hands and snapped a picture or two of my Picot:
The pattern was pretty straightforward so the knitting was enjoyable and moved along in a speedy fashion. One small word of warning - I did the second size (34") and although the pattern requests 6 balls of yarn, I did just stray into a 7th ball.
Here's one of me wearing it. The neckline turned out a little different to how I pictured it. The illustration in the book doesn't show much - the model's hair is draped artfully over the relevant bit! It actually rolls over at the top which is okay, but I think I would have preferred just a little stand up collar so I'd work fewer rows at this point if I did it again. Also, I did the collar using a circular needle which helped avoid a visible seam.
It was the first time I've worked with the denim yarn and I was a little unsure about what to expect by way of shrinkage. I washed it on a very hot wash with lots of other pairs of jeans (we've been visiting the beach a lot - sand included for extra abrasion at no extra cost!) and I'd estimate that it shrank by about 20%, forgot to take a photograph of it before washing - too keen! I'm very happy with the final fit. Can't wait to wash it again - I love faded denim!
Just a little entry by way of a progress update which is snail-like at the moment. Picot is at the armhole shaping and just needs a good evenings' knitting to be (almost) complete. No picture as frankly it's not at all different to the piece I've already shown - back and front are identical.
I'm having a little difficult working up the steam to work on some of my projects right now. As the eagle-eyed may have spotted, I've not knitted a sleeve in months and I think that's the problem. The weather here has been autumnal of late - I'm back to jeans and boots - and the thought of working up a little summery sleeveless number just hasn't been appealing. I need cardigans, or at the very least, sleeves right now!
I'm wondering if I'm falling into the trap of knitting just because I like the look of the finished piece and the chance of learning a few new little knitting tricks rather than considering whether I will actually be able to wear it?
I wore my little Giotto tank (3rd June entry) last week but the weather was so abysmal it was hidden underneath a cardigan and a coat all day. No chance to admire the subtle colour changes and richness of the yarn - what's the point of that? I guess I knew it was there but I'm thinking I should have knit a scarf with that gorgeous yarn instead. Possibly the frog pool beckons....
Ho hum...sounding a little glum. Guess I'm in need of some sunshine, that or a really good yarn shop. I'd settle for the yarn!
My youngest daughter's teacher is leaving today to have a baby, so I took advantage of that to indulge in a little 'baby knitting'. I used the snowflake bootee pattern from Debbie Bliss' Baby Style and worked them up in cream 4-ply cotton. There's a dear little picot cast-off around the cuff edge.
I love doing bootees. I feel that I blindly follow directions and then all of a sudden, there's a little shoe shape! Magic knitting. Let's hope she likes them.
Everything else has been sadly neglected this week, Picot is a little bigger, I'm hoping to get some time on it this weekend. The children finish school next week for the summer holidays so there's a lot of end-of-term activities taking place. We've had Sports Day, an evening concert, a classroom tour, a swimming gala and a storytelling workshop and that's just in the last two days! Roll on the holidays - Mummy needs it!
It's our fourteenth wedding anniversary today - we're going out to celebrate!
PS. In fourteen years, I've never knit him anything larger than a pair of socks - do you think he's earned the knitting love yet?!
We've had visitors this last week so not much knitting time (argh!) but here's a little progress shot of the front of Picot. I'm enjoying working with the denim yarn - it has the very distinctive smell that new jeans had when I was a child and is pretty crisp and regular, plus I love the picot cast-on!
My hands are tinged a gentle shade of blue now despite scrubbing at regular intervals. I've surrendered to the blue....
I had an evening away from Picot to work up a little something in some Hebridean Wool that I bought locally. It's from Vicarage Farm (right at the bottom of the page) that produces organic meats and this is the first year that they've produced yarn from their sheep. The yarn is Aran-weight and only comes in three natural colours, a cream, a dark brown (the hebridean and the softest) and a camel-ish mix of the two. It was nice to work with and I got to use my new Addi circulars which was a treat. Aren't they amazingly light? I did a little hat for me, a kind of modified beret. It's soft and warm - lovely! I might consider a winter cardigan in this stuff.
I had a lovely surprise this week as well - this little Phildar carrier bag! It was a present from my Mum and Dad who have just come back from their French hols - what was inside??
Three balls of this!! At 100g a ball, I'm thinking of making a little tank for me or one of my girls with two of them. Has anyone any experience of using this yarn? If so, does that sound feasible? I haven't seen any actual patterns for it and was wondering if I could just substitute it for something like maybe Rowan Glace or 4-ply? I've googled but nothing useful came up....
I managed to finish up the purple poncho on Friday and it has been worn almost continuously throughout the weekend by our eldest daughter. It fell very squarely into the '6 balls required' field, meaning that I had about six inches of yarn left at the end - close call! Here she is in all her purple shimmeriness:
It was pretty difficult to get it to hang straight as in the pattern picture but we had a lot of fun trying.
Many thanks for the comments to the last entry about my denim dilemma. I have to 'fess up and say that I made a snap decision based on available yarn and have made a start on Picot. Here's progress so far:
Yes, that is an entire front (or back, both are identical). I've had a bad head-cold all weekend and didn't feel like moving around too much so this is what resulted. If all goes well with this one, I'm going with Vintage as my next denim project.
I've put the stitches for the neckline on a holder - pattern says to cast off 44 stitches and then pick up 44 stitches for the collar, which is stocking stitch for 13 rows, then a picot cast-off. Now, does anyone know of any horrible reason why I couldn't just use the 44 stitches straight off the holder? I'm just looking to make my life easier!