Thank you to everyone for your support. The last couple of days have been difficult and decisions have had to be made. The most difficult was to decide not to attend the funeral. This is made with the full support of Mum and 2 of my sisters.
This is because Matt and I had planned our first proper holiday for 3 years (no family, no knitting events, no duty visits etc) for this week to include a trip to our favourite kite festival. The festival is in Oostduinkerke, Belgium and is celebrating its 20th anniversary and would be a chance to meet up with many friends from all over the world.
The next decision has been about what to take! We've compromised on the kites and will be taking the rokkakus and some of our vintage kites to celebrate the 20th anniversary. The clothes are virtually packed, now all I need to decide is how much knitting to take for 6 days away - most of which will be spent either on a sandy beach or in a bar!
I got the call I'd been expecting for a few weeks. Gran died this afternoon.
She had a good life living to see her great grand-daughters; her 100th birthday and the telegram from the Queen.
I 'll always be grateful to her for teaching me to crochet and wish I'd taken more time to learn from her - particularly how to do bobbin lace.
I've just finished the first ball of yarn for Coco and love the effect of moss stitch in Harris yarn - I'm just not sure I'll manage to finish this as my hands protest after 4 rows.
My love of Hebridean yarn continues as I work on my Edgy exchange. I decided to go with making a plain garter stitch shawl with a fancy edge. The pattern I chose has the edging knitted at the same time and it's taken me a while to get used to the row counting but I'm progressing well and am already into the 3rd ball of yarn, soon to divide for the shaping of the "wings".
The Harris saga continues and there is further mention to it on the Virtual Yarns site. I then went looking at the glorious designs. As none of the garment kits would fit me, I went and had a peek at the accessories and fell for just the thing for a Leo knitter approaching a milestone birthday the Leo Scarf - then I saw the price and thought again!
I'm torn - the postman brought 2 packages this morning and I had to decide which one to knit!
The first is the lovely Harris DK, in Thistle. to make Coco thanks for excellent service as always from Get Knitted Remember that I hate knitting rib - well I hate moss stitch even more, so how come I'm already up to the pocket placement on a front? Must be a combination of the antibiotics and watching all the fabulous moss stitch done by Amelia last year - she's brainwashed me into thinking I can do it.
The second was the inspiration for my "Edgy Exchange" a pattern from the Yarn Barn in the USA. The list moms have paired me with a knitter whose work I envy - this is going to push me to do my best. Yes, I've cast on for that as well and done the first 30 rows, I think it will work well. Having read and memorised every word in my recipients blurb I hope I've chosen wisely and that they will enjoy the yarn from my vintage stash.
Thanks to everyone for their good wishes, I'm feeling more human this morning now that the drugs have kicked in. I'm also following readers orders and staying home knitting. Most of what I did yesterday has been frogged - kniitng cables under the influence of antibiotics is not recommended!
In an effort to cure myself, following a tip off from Diane, I went to Get Knitted and ordered enough Harris DK in Thistle to knit Coco. I'm also thinking about buying the yarn for Jazz as I've realised it's tha same shape as Caspian
Having felt totally rough for most of the weekend. I dragged myself off to the Dr's this morning . After a lengthy wait (knitting on the baby blanket) I finally saw a Dr who has ordered me home to rest armed with a total of 9 different medications - I never do things by halves!!
My plan is to put on the Pride and Prejudice dvd and spend 6 hours knitting before Matt gets home. Hopefully that will see the end of the baby blanket and I can then think about starting on the edgy exchange.
A further article - wonder who will win - bet it's not the knitters!
After the highs come the lows! I thought I'd try to finish a UFO and dug out a Summer Tweed / domino knit from last year. All it needed was the neckband adding. Or so I thought! Sitting outside in bright sunshine I noticed that one batch of squares appeared to have been knit in a different dye lot and there was no way I could live with that so I started ripping and kept on until I'd ripped the lot!
I'm wondering if I ought to stockpile on Rowan Harris yarn now having read this Harris Tweed
Well it's finally finished and I'm nearly happy with it. Not a bad knit for me as I started it on 17 March when I went to the NEC and life has been very hectic in the intervening time. I've also been working on other projects.
The charts for the fair isle are minute and in colour so I stood no chance of trying to enlarge them. The pattern used 3 shades of orange for the chart but I was only able to see 2!
The yarn quantities were incorrect, I needed to buy an extra ball of one colour and only used 1 out of 4 of another and the final straw was when I couldn't tell the difference in the chart colours so didn't use one colour at all.
Despite all that I enjoyed knitting it. I liked the yarns and the colours I chose. It feels like a jacket I will wear for years and it's slightly vintage styling means it will always be "out of date".
I wore it to work today and to Liberty's - lots of good comments about it - not just from my friends but also from 2 total stangers who were in the store. I persuaded Amelia to take some photos for me so as soon as I can work out how to post them you'll see it.
Capsian knitted using Rowan Harris yarn.
Design from "Shorelines" by Di Gilpin
I'm feeling slightly brain dead after 2 days on a computer training course for some new software I'm supposed to be using at work. The fun will be trying to remember it as it will be a few weeks before it gets installed on my machine!
I'm so shattered that I've been unable to concentrate on tonight's planned knitting so decided to dive into my odd-ball stash and recreate my favourite winter hat. A fairly mindless knit that has turned out quite pretty using a yarn that I think is possibly DB Maya but as usual for my stash totally label-less.
Picture has been taken and will be posted once I fathom out how to get it out of my camera. Sounds pathetic but my main home pc has had a hard drive crash and it must be 2+ years since I saw the software disk.
The good news is that I found the missing pattern in a very unexpected place - in a sleeve protector, in a file!!
many thanks for all the kind words but please direct them to Polly - this blog is all her hard work - I just provide the daily drivel!
I've decided that the sleeves on Caspian are too long so I'm taking them out, frogging 6 rows and am going to try to get them back in as well as before! They went in so easily I'm bound to botch this attempt.
I'll get the camera charged and there may be some pics later in the week.
The bag is finished and ready for felting at the weekend. The baby blanket is at the boring stocking stitch phase and showing every uneven stitch and I've now lost the pattern for the Alpaca Silk - one of these days I will be organised.
Polly and Dawn will have to wait to find out what I got in my order from Knit Happens but I doubt it's what you're thinking of Dawn!
We're about to embark on the next Rowan Exchange and I'm anxiously waiting forthe details of who I'm knitting for so that I can start. What ever I make will come from my stash - good job it's a fairly comprehensive one, I can cover most things from cobweb lace yarn to super chunky!! I've spent the last 2 days looking at so many "edges" that I'm beginning a nice straight edge is the way to go!
The bag I started yesterday is growing well. The yarn is a 50%mohair/50% wool mix from The Drop Spindle in Santa Maria and was a gift from Rachel of Dreamwoven The colours are blues, purples and turquoise. I'm planning to use some long plaited handles that I found in John Lewis the other week.
The doorbell rang at 7 am and I wanted to kill the postman until I saw what he held! All was forgiven as he handed me 3 fat envelopes.
Envelope 1 = Rowan 6 bought on ebay at a sensible price
Envelope 2 = 8 Patterns from Vermont Fiber Designs - patterns for sensible sizes!!
Envelope 3= my Knit Happens order!!!!! Can't say anymore about that or I might spoil someone's surprise.
On the needles this morning is some bulky yarn from my stash being made ito a bag. My hands ache so I can't get a decent gauge on smaller needles and as this project is going to be felted it's ideal for a bad hand but must knit day.
Dawn and Polly have decreed I must have photos and came armed at Liberty's last night! Here's a glimpse of the baby blanket for a colleague. The yarn is Patons Washed Haze DK
Here's the start of the scarf. The KSH softens the feel of the ladder yarn
Caspian is being blocked, I'm bored with the stocking stitch on a baby blanket and my fingers want to play with something tactile!
A quick raid of the stash this morning yielded a partial ball of KSH and a ball of ladder yarn ( a BBwools special £1 ball) - the two are being used together to make a quick little shoulderette shawl to my favourite pattern a variation of the Shapely Shawlette.I'm hoping this will be a one day project as I'll gain knitting time at Liberty's tonight.
Sleeve finished, front band picked up and half knitted only 7 rows left and then all those ends to darn in!
Perhaps I'll bring it with me to Liberty's tomorrow night.
The ever helpful Jules came to my rescue just in time - I'd spent part of my lunch hour knitting and have now done all of the necessary increases and in the right place!
My pattern is in the post, so hopefully that means I can start on the band tomorrow.
I've managed to leave my copy of Shorelines at a friends! Typically, I cannot remember how many stitches to increase to and how many rows after that!!
Perhaps I'll call Jules and co at Liberty to see if someone will kindly read it out to me over the phone and I can finish this sleeve on the journey home tonight.
The good part of the day was sewing the first sleeve into Caspian and trying it on - I think it will fit! The second sleeve is nearly completed and then there's just the band - I'm looking forward to that as there is more fair isle.
The bad part of the day is that I'm still pissed off at being bumped from a Secret Pal exchange! Despite sending to my pal and writing to her and receiving from another and writing thank you notes, the "organiser" has announced to both of them that I have "dropped out" and reassigned them new partners!! She decided that I had dropped out when I failed to reply to an email setting out new rules and one of the rules was I had to reply to her mail.
Easy enough, except when you don't get the mail as she's misspelt your name!! To then be told that it was because I had misspelt my email address in my original post was ludicrous - if I had, how come I knew who to send to and how did my pal keep in touch with me!!
My solution is that I'm going to send myself a present each month if I can remember who I am and where I live.
Back on to a good thing - I found knitting on the V&A website and a great plug for the excellent blogs of ATU, Mason Dixon and Knitter Knatter!
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion/knitting/
Have fun with those vintage patterns!
It's been a bad few weeks of 12 hour days at work following a bad pre-inspection audit. Everyone is jumpy, everyone is looking for the quick fix and not many want to put in the effort.
Knitting has almost been at a standstill but the arrival of the bank holiday weekend saw me spend a day with Tess and Les at a May Fayre. Les helped me wind my beautiful skein of 4ply and then provided me with mugs of coffee whilst I sat knitting surrounded by Tess' wonderful yarn. Totally soothed I headed home and had a good evening with my DH.
Today has seen me finish the body of Caspian so I only have half a sleeve and the band to go. I do hope it looks better than the one on display in JL which has a lumpy band, badly sewn in sleeves and uses one colour less than the pattern book states! In that we are in agreement!!
Also on the needles is a baby blanket for a colleague knitted from Patons Haze; my new shawl in 4ply and the Debbis Bliss Alpaca Silk sleeveless top.