Winter knits

I decided a few weeks ago that I was going to knit my boys hats for the winter. Yep. It's the middle of summer - in fact today it is 42 degrees outside - and I've been in here knitting hats for winter. Well, one hat so far at least. But more to come. I figure if I wait until winter they just won't happen, so I'm getting organised early :) Not like my Christmas cards that I wrote out, and then never posted. oops. Anyway, here's the progress on the first one:




This yarn is Four Bags Full merino which was a custom dye job by Rach a loooong time ago. It's "Black Rainbow". I actually bought it with the intention of knitting M some shorties, but that never happened and then I decided it was far to beautiful to soak up wee. My big boy L loves rainbows, so he gets a rainbow winter beanie :) This has progressed more than this pic shows, and I'm actually nearly finished it. Most of this was knit up on Christmas day, as we had a lazy day at home, boys playing with toys, and me knitting, which was lovely! I had a few false starts trying to get the sizing right. I'm not following a pattern. Just using the Yarn Harlot's guide to knitting a basic hat to your measurements. It's working out well and I doubt I'll ever buy another winter hat for my boys. Too much fun knitting them myself instead. I've even got plans for one for DH! M will be next though. Knitting hats is fun :)

But apart from that not much other knitting has been going on. I received my lovely Knit Picks Harmony needles the other day, which I'll post a pic of soon, but haven't manage to start anything on them as yet. I want to get this hat finished first. Other than that my time has been taken up by trying to salvage some constructive activity out of the last few days of 2007. So I've been madly clearing out wardrobes full of boxes of stuff that have sat there untouched for 5 years and getting rid of other miscellaneous junk, oops I mean, highly valuable stuff of great sentimental value. Well it would be for me to have hoarded it for this long, right?

So Happy New Year to everyone, and hope you all have a very safe and healthy 2008!

Santa Claus is Coming To Town

Kindy finished up last week. L's last day at kindy ever! He starts school next year. So we made some shortbread to give to his kindy teachers as a Christmas gift. L helped with a bit of cooking cutting and a lot more dough eating LOL Unfortunately there are none of these left now :( Went to have one with a cuppa this morning and was sadly disappointed. Must make some more this week :)



And while I'm on the subject of kindy, it's been fantastic for craft ideas at home! The kids were making lots of Christmas decorations in the last few weeks and one of the things L did was a painted pinecone with glitter. So we decided to make some more of our own at home to go with the one he made at kindy. He had collected a bunch of pinecones from the park where we held his 4th birthday party last year, which I've just had sitting in a bowl looking all brown and boring. Now they look much more interesting!



And as an added festive bonus, our outdoor "entertaining" area is now all sparkly too :) Pat on the back for me for having the foresight to do this activity outside! I now have two sparkly boys also, and a lot of sparkly clothes, but it was fun.

Cluck, cluck

Not knitting, but another WIP I'm working on right now....



Approximately 20wks gestation. All bits are there and all seem to be working :) And yes, we know what it is, but we're not telling :p

And in knitting news, progress has stalled on the Azure socks due to a small stuff up and a dropped stitch, but I did manage to frog it back and re-do where I was up to last night and tonight I plan to continue on. I've just done the heel bit, and now I need to pick up some stitches. Not my favourite thing so I put off the re-doing because of that, but I need to get on with it.

Omo scarf has halted but I am trying to knit a few repeats each day to continue the progress. It's looooong, and I seem to have so much yarn left still! LOL It might be a while on that one. Lucky it's summer right now.

Something to tempt the tastebuds

A little break from knitting:





Birthday cakes for L and M, and a raspberry cheesecake slice. The cheesecake slice is pre-baking, and the mixture was so yummy I could have eaten it unbaked. None of them lasted very long.

Azure - progress

Progress so far:


It's actually coming along really well, and it's knitting up pretty quickly. Still working on my dpn technique to try and avoid ladders. They aren't noticable here, but there is a very noticeable one running through the centre of the bottom of the foot. It's not as huge as my ladders have been before, so I'm obviously getting better, but it's there. Anyway, I feel as though these might be running a little big anyway. Not 100% yet, but I have a feeling that wear will cause them to stretch and be too baggy on my feet. I'm going to keep knitting a bit more though to get a better idea, but not sure what to do if they are too big. I guess going down a size in needles might help, only I don't have the next size down. I have recently purchased some correct sized needles from here, but they are not yet in stock so not sure when I'd have them. I don't really want to knit a whole sock that's going to be too big, so I'll knit these to the heel I think and see if I can get a better idea of size then.

Frickety Frack

On Saturday night I cast on this, and approximately 2 hours later this was my progress:



Now I'm all for learning new techniques, and I suppose it wasn't actually the new technique that caused so much angst, as it was my lack of ability to interpret a pattern. After no less than 4 attempts to get started - and possibly more, I really lost count - I got to this point. And after all that, I had to rip it all out on Sunday morning anyway, because I finally realised my pattern reading error. And really it was much easier to start all over again than to unknit. Frickety Frack. Anyway, I am now an "expert" on this cast on technique, so much so that I can probably now do it in my sleep. So that's got to be an upside, right?

Anyway, not to be outdone by my poor pattern reading skills, my equally poor chart reading skills had to have their share of the limelight. What I have learnt today is that if you are going to knit from a chart, it is generally best if you KNIT FROM THE CORRECT CHART. Yes, I know it will be a revelation to you all to find this out. It certainly was for me. So after spending my Sunday evening obliviously knitting from the wrong chart, and all the time wondering why on earth the stitches didn't seem to be lining up with the chart, unknitting 3 rounds of incorrect knitting while also attempting to watch L at his swimming lesson today, and some more knitting this morning while the boys ate lunch, from the correct chart, I now have this progress to share:



Yes, knit-lovers. It has taken me 3 days to get this far. At this rate these socks will be ready just in time for winter. Perfect.

Not Socks

I got a bit fed up with the sock thing. I think I really need to find a solution to my wide-foot issue before I can knit socks with "real" sock yarn. None of the patterns seems to be big enough for my foot, and the one I did cast on - 4 times! - was just giving me the pip. I decided I was knitting it for knitting's sake really, so it is no more. I also decided that the yarn was far too pretty to put on my clodhoppers, so I checked out Ravelry and found something a little more suitable. I have cast on the Omo Scarf and this is my progress so far:


I'm really happy with how this is turning out. It's a nice easy lace pattern and it looks really good, although my photo probably doesn't do it justice. I have discovered that I have a problem with counting though, so I'm hoping this project will help to rectify that! Not sure how long this will turn out. I'm going to just keep on knitting until I run out of yarn. I may need to cast on something else to break up the monotony a bit though. Although I do like the repetition of this and it's making for good tv watching knitting.

Socks - or not

I'm trying, I really am. But the knitting gods are just not with me.

I did manage to cast on these, but this afternoon I foolishly left my knitting bag sitting on the couch. I came into the room to find M holding all 5 of my dpns - and my knitting was no longer on them!!!! arrrrgghh. I did manage to get all the stitches back onto the needles successfully, but then I noticed just how bad the "ladder" was where I had joined the round - and had also somehow lost a stitch, which I increased to get back at some point thinking it wouldn't be too noticeable. I knew it was all there, I'd just been fooling myself that it wouldn't show all that much. It showed. So I decided to rip. I guess I should thank M really. And be thankful he didn't stab himself in the eye with my needles, or even worse, stab L.

So attempt #3 will begin tonight. That is if I have enough time after blowing up balloons to make Octopus' as a surprise for L, who's birthday is tomorrow :)

Hey Mojo, where'd you go?

So I'm back. At least I think I am. And apparently it's NaBloPoMo, which I've failed miserably at since this is my first post since early October. If I get one post in for November, does that count?

Anyway, where have I been? Well I can now reveal the secret to my disappearance, although I suspect that most of the regular readers of this blog already know why, but just in case there's any other interested parties out there, here it is. I'm pregnant. And boy did morning sickness mess with my knitting mojo. I've really only just started to feel like doing anything again. Strangely I felt most sick in the evenings - prime knitting time - and of course very tired. So instead of knitting I've been sleeping and throwing up. Yahoo. And to top it all off I also managed to catch myself some kind of cold/sinus infection which has been hanging around for over a month now. Life has been pretty great the last few months.

All of that seems to be behind me now though, and I even managed to cast on something last night. Lets not mention that after about an hour of knitting I ripped it all out and will start something else again tonight I hope, but I did manage to knit. And it didn't make me want to vomit. Here's the yarn I cast on, mainly because it's all I have to show you since I didn't actually make progress with anything. This is "Cherry Pie" hand dyed by Elissa of The Yarn Cafe as part of the Yarn Collective Sock Club (my first installment!). It's beautiful, but my pic probably doesn't do it justice. Now I just need to find a suitable pattern, cause the one I started last night isn't going to work out.


I shall post some progress pics when I finally get something going. But don't expect too many FOs from me anytime soon. Mojo is only returning slowly.

Chocolate Swap - For Moi!

Another swap on Woolaholics. This time Chocolate!! Well, technically Chocolate and Coffee/Tea, but I think the focus was originally on chocolate :)

My parcel arrived this morning, and here's a picture:




Here we have a couple of Timeout Hazlenut Crisp bars (which I've never seen before so I'm really looking forward to trying these!), some Belgian praline chocolates, which I am not going to share with anyone else! A package of English Breakfast Tea (my favourite!) and an extra little surprise of some beautiful yarn! My swapee says you can't eat chocolate and not knit, and I tend to agree with her :) I really love the colours of this yarn, something I definitely wouldn't have picked for myself, and very suited to a chocolate swap too.

Thank you so much to my secret swapper. Everything is much appreciated!

If you're looking for me....

......I'm in here.

Small Things Swap - What I Made

I made these for my swapee. They are now with her so it's safe to show it off here. This is about all I've managed to knit recently.

I can't even link to these patterns because all of my knitting links were accidently deleted :( and I can't be bothered going to find them again right now so I can insert them here, so you'll just have to enjoy the pic and wonder how on earth I can be so clever LOL



The teddies were quite easy, and I have another two to make for my boys. The pattern was "Bubby" ( I think) from knitty.

The bag was really easy too, even though I did manage to mis-read the pattern and did the short rows wrong. After I blocked it you couldn't tell and it looked pretty good. It's just small, so enough to hold keys and a phone maybe, or even a ball of yarn for some take-away knitting.

Do you think he was hungry Pt 2?

This is what happens when you leave your almost 2 yo unattended, thinking that he's happily watching Play School with his older brother.


That would be the remains of the chocolate cake that I planned to bake today. All this happened while I was doing the dishes/cleaning the kitchen/doing laundry, so my theory that housework is bad rings true LOL I should have been supervising my children and not cleaning the house! At least now I have a bit of motivation to arrange to have the couches cleaned. Thankfully most of it stayed dry, although there were some wet bits. Most on him. Check out that hand!

My First UFO Month Finished Object - Trice

Now I know that September doesn't start until Saturday, but I was feeling motivated the other night so thought it best to go with that feeling. It did take me two days to finish this off (not entire days, but I did the bits needed across two days!) and I finally sewed on the last piece last night! L took it to bed with him and seems to love it. The eyes are a bit dodgy (as are many other bits of it LOL) but it's finally finished and I am soooooo relieved!!





And I think I am done with toys. I really didn't enjoy making this much, apart from the fact that I knew I was making it for my beautiful son and I knew that he would love it no matter what it looked like LOL but it was just so fiddly, and generally a pain to do. I think it actually looks more like a pig in this pic than a triceratops LOL but L doesn't seem too bothered by that. There are actually two more dinosaurs that I promised to knit him but I'm definitely not motivated to do that. He did say he wants me to knit him a mouse, so maybe that won't be quite as painful. I'll see how I feel.

UFO Month

September is going to be UFO Month on Woolaholics, so here is my list of UFOs that I will be attempting to finish by the end of September:

• Ear Flap Cap - just need to edge it once I learn how!
• Rainy Day Sock - must avoid SSS!
• Dinosaur for L - this is the oldest UFO, but see next post ;)
• Central Park Hoodie - I am going to attempt to actually finish it, but just in case I am going to state at the outset that my goal is actually to get as far as starting the band and hood (which means I need to finish both sleeves and seam the pieces together by the end of September)!

I think that is all I will offer up right now. I have a few things I need to start in the coming months so I'll leave my list at that and see how it goes :)

Oh, and I don't have a pic of all of these UFOs, and I really can't be bothered pulling them all out in order to get one, so you'll have to imagine them and wait for them to pop up in the "Finished Objects" list!

Do you think he was hungry?

And all along I've been saying he doesn't like carbohydrates. Seems I was wrong, AND he likes plastic too. Must get lock for pantry door.

Stitchmarker Swap!

My stitchmarkers from the Woolaholics Stitchmarker Swap arrived today. They are just beautiful! And they came in a great little case which is fantastic, because all my stitchmarkers are currently floating around loose in the bottom of my zippered bag that goes with my Sea Horse knitting bag, so it's all a bit unkempt and crazy in there LOL



So not only do I have some beautiful new stitchmarkers, but I have a way to keep them organised now also! Thank so much secret swapper :)

Finished Objects

My goal since finishing the Rainy Day Sock has been to complete some UFOs that have been hanging around a bit too long (not as long as some other people's UFOs, but long enough that they are now not suitable for this year). Anyway, the first of these is the Child's Hoodie. I can't even remember when I started this now, but I lost interested around halfway through the first sleeve. Mostlly because I ran out of dyed wool, and never got around to dyeing what I did have left, and I suspect that I didn't have enough left to complete it anyway. Also, one or two of the balls that were dyed, got all tangled up and I couldn't be bothered untangling. So motivation was low.

After seeing a different pattern that was quite similar though, I realised that this particular knit didn't actually need arms. Especially since the weather is now not so cold and it would be move suitable as a vest-type of garment. So I ripped out the arm, popped on some garter stitch bits, did a bit of garter stitch around the neck, instead of doing the hood and ...... voila!! A Finished Object :) The *Armless Child's Hoodie sans Hood*.

And what amazes me is that L actually asked to wear it two days in a row and didn't once ask to take it off. I'm still stunned by that.



And in other knitting news... there is another *almost-finished-object*. The Ear Flap cap is nearly done. All I need to do is figure out how to do a crochet crab stitch to edge it with, and possibly make a larger pom pom for the top, and I can cross that one off too.

I also did some work on my Small Things Swap on the weekend, but I'm not happy with the way it turned out so I'm going to do it again.

And no, the second Rainy Day Sock has not be cast on yet, and I am not allowing myself to do it until I have the Ear Flap cap complete, and the swap item done, otherwise I'll become completely obsessed with it and not touch anything else.

It was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie

Ok, well not quite. But it certainly scared the &^%$ out of me! Picture this....

Me sitting at the computer (might be hard since you may not know what I look like really, so just insert random female form), M in bed sleeping, L having a bit of quiet time watching ABC2. I get up to go back to M's room to close his bedroom door and what do I see? Two birds flapping around IN MY DINING ROOM!!!! I let out a loud "Holy S**t!! (not something I say regularly mind you, but it seemed an appropriate exclamation given the situation). L comes running down the hallway, which sets these birds off again, flapping their wings and slamming into the windows trying to escape.

Seems I had left the back (side really, but let's not get too technical) sliding door open, and I suspect these birds - which I might add are frequent visitors to our yard - just trotted in for a look-see while the coast was clear. They were some kind of pigeon-ey dove thing. Not my favourite bird, and not too intelligent either I believe. Quite large too I might say. Anyway, after the scare of L coming running, one of them actually managed to find the door after banging itself into the windows a few more times and took off leaving it's *friend* to fend for itself. A quick phone call to DH to tell me how to get rid of this intruder, some masterful moves by me, hiding behind a sheet and a bit of poking with a broomstick, and a bit more flying into the windows, the second bird finally found the door and took off too. phew.

I like birds. But I don't like birds, iykwim. They are cool to look at (well, not these birds, they are pretty boring and we wish they'd go away, we like natives and get quite a lot of them in the backyard), but I don't want them flapping around in my house and I certainly don't want them flapping around my head.

It only occurred to me AFTER I managed to get the bird out, that I should take a picture of the bird in my house to put here, and to prove to all that I will tell this story too, that it did actually happen. As it is, I have this picture of a feather, which the second bird left behind before leaving. A calling card of sorts. It smelled a bit *birdy* for a bit, but we have now recovered.

Rainy Day Socks (or should I say *sock*)

One down, one to go. The second one will have to wait. This was quite a challenge for me, even though the lace pattern is quite simple and easy to remember.

Things I have learned while knitting these socks:

• comedic television and knitting do not go together at all (particularly The Chaser's War on Everything)
• Playgroup and knitting anything other than stocking stitch do not mix well either
• I am not good at frogging lace
• I am now an excellent "un-knitter"

I think I spent more time *un-knitting* these than knitting them. Oh and I might add that there is a couple of mistakes in the, despite my frequent un-knitting. Grrrrr. Anyway, don't let my struggles put you off if you want to knit this sock. The problems I had were more to do with me than the pattern.
Ok, maybe I should include some specs?

Pattern: Rainy Day Socks



Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in Pink (#340006)

Needles: 3.5mm 100cm circular (Knit Picks), magic-loop

I shall post a pic in here when I finally finish the other one, but I'm putting it down for now.

Flashing My Stash

Another *entry* for Woolaholics! This time it's *flash your stash*. I must say that I'm quite suprised by my stash myself, after unloading it all from it's storage onto the bed. I know it's not as huge as some, but it's certainly pretty big for someone who's only relatively new to knitting and wool hoarding LOL So what do we have here (you'll have to pick them out yourself, but I'll try to work from left to right in the pic):

• *Pacific Moon* dyed BFL from NDS on ebay
• Patonyle sock wool (black and white) which were for DHs Jaywalker's
• Sock Swap yarn (green/blue/white)
• Monster Knits sock yarn *Kai*
• Cottone from spotlight (for dinosaur toys)
• 200gms Utiku white yarn, hand-dyed badly by me LOL
• Various balls of Monster Knits yarn - Earth Sky, Channon, Shipwreck, Navy and Green Treliske
• Utiku Gems
• Utiku Chocky Swirl
  
• Utiku Chocolate
• FBF Merino in *Black Rainbow* (including small black skein) hand-dyed by Rach from Stitch Sista
• Longies yarn swap (green/blue/white)
• Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed - approx 7 balls there, the rest is my CPH
• Zhivago in a navy colour (there's more of this somewhere but I can't find it)
• Cleckheaton Country Naturals (dark yarn in bottom right hand corner) for DHs throw
• Patons Shadow Tweed, which is for my Small Things Swap on Woolaholics
• 150gms cream Merino Supreme
• 400gms cream Merino Spun
• 50gms of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran in cream
• 200gms some merino yarn that I bought ages ago from ebay
• Some undyed BFL from Monster Knits

and the piece-de-resistance......

• 700gms undyed FBF merino *insert incredibly shocked smiley here*

There is more that isn't in the pic also. I have more MK *Channon* on the way, another ball of the shadow tweed and some other bits and bobs of yarn that I have for some reason, which is probably not ever going to be used for anything except maybe stuffing the toy dinosaurs, if I ever get around to making those.

Phew. Feels better to have that out now. I knew there was quite a bit, but when you spread it all out like that, it's looks a bit scary! Now I really must get knitting!!

Knitting Bag Challenge

Here's my *entry* into the knitting bag challenge issued by Bec on Woolaholics.

Pretty boring in comparison to some others, but in my defense I rarely take my knitting out with me. And I actually have two knitting bags here (technically I have three, but the other one is stuffed with UFOs and even more boring than these two!) - my Sea Horse Bag and another little bag that was a Christmas gift from DH. Both of these contain current WIPs, so I'm entering them both.


Ok, in the Sea Horse Bag we have:

• Ear Flap hat in BBR Bulky *Talyn*, which is still on the needles and needs finishing
• The arms of my CPH, one which is almost complete but which I can't bear to rip out yet, and the other I ripped back to the ribbing to redo
• Knit Picks Options set
• Calculator (i was wondering where this had got to!!)

In the Blue Bag we have:

• Rainy Day socks WIP
• Dinosaur toy WIP that I've been *knitting* for L for some time now (it's actually done more lurking in my bag than anything else
• All of my Addi Turbo needles (there's way more there than it looks like in the pic!)
  
• Naturally Bamboo circs
• Sea Horse zippered bag (which goes with the other bag) which contains various bits and pieces like stitch markers, needles, scissors, pen, ruler
• pins
  
• tape measure (crappy one from spotlight which has been chewed numerous times by M)
• Pattern folder for patterns from the net (this normally lives in the Sea Horse Bag, but I'm using it for my socks atm)

I think that's about it.

A little more self-indulgence

Well this purchase actually occurred before the Debbie Bliss self-indulgence purchase, but it only arrived today, so here it is:

*Kai* sock yarn from Monster Knits.

I haven't got a pattern for this yet. Must get to work finding something suitable soon.

Nothing like yummy yarn to make a girl feel better ;)

A Little Self-Indulgence

Everyone (well, ok, maybe not quite everyone LOL) on Woolaholics has been knitting up these Rainy Day Socks. I love them. They look so sweet. And when I look at the picture I see pink for me. So I decided that I wanted a pair in pink.

I was a bit confused by the pattern as *everyone* said it was a DK weight pattern, which I always think of as 8ply (although I'm a complete novice so really have no idea how much "DK" could encompass), but the pattern says that Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino was used, which is a 5ply. So, Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino it is for me. Not cheap at $11.40 per 50g ball! But what the heck. I want pink socks, so I'm getting pink socks :) And it was pay day today, so I can spend my spending money on whatever I like, right?!

This pattern looks like a bit of a challenge for me - attention and technique I think - but I'm looking forward to it. I should be able to finish off my other sock of doom tonight and then I'll be starting on these.

The colour of the yarn is so pretty too. I'm not usually a *pretty* kind of girl, but I do like pink :)

The Addiction Begins

Two's a pair.

Here is my very first finished sock.



I'm calling it the *Not-Quite-International-Sock-of-Doom*, due to the fact that I actually didn't do the sock of doom ribbing, as set out in the pattern, but just did k3, p3 ribbing instead. This was not planned, but it was way too late to go back when I realised I had done this, so I kept going because I figured it would still work. The yarn is Knittery 8ply merino, which was hand-dyed by Bec when Angel Blossom was alive. The colourway was *Blue Rainbow* if I remember correctly.

I attempted magic loop to create this and I must say I love it! So easy once I got the hang of it. A few false starts getting off and running, but pretty easy once I got into the swing. And no unsightly loose bits where you switch from needle to needle, like I was getting on my now defunct Jaywalkers. I shall be using this technique more in the future I think :) Only one minor issue of a couple of loose stitches on one side where I moved to the heel flap I think. Not sure why they are loose, but I can fix it by redistributing it a bit I think. Pretty happy for a first time sock anyway :) All up I think I spent about 5 hours on the sock, which I started on Friday and finished Monday night.

And just in case anyone thinks I'm going to fall victim to the SSS (second sock syndrome) I cast on the second one last night and I'm itching to get that one finished!!

Domestic-ness

Spent this morning baking. Here is the fruit of my labour:


Apricot Muesli Slice. Yum. It's actually pretty good. M even ate a whole piece with absolutely no coaxing whatsoever, and he even said *Yum!* after each bite! The real test will be when L is home and gives me his verdict. I have low expectations on that front LOL

Also made pizza scrolls this morning too. They didn't quite turn out as they should, but they went down ok for lunch so all is good. No pics as they disappeared too fast! I'll bake some more *properly* next time - I cheated and used ready-made pastry this time instead of making my own as per the recipe, and I tell you, cheaters never prosper! LOL

And just to show that I haven't been completely unproductive in recent weeks, I made these too, which are a gift for someone who's name I cannot mention right now, as I'm pretty sure she reads this and it's meant to be a secret, but meh. I'm already way over time, and the cat is probably out of the bag by now anyway. They are a little gift to say *sorry*, and she'll know what for if she reads here, and if she can't work it out, she'll know when she gets them! LOL

MIA

Well, I haven't really been *missing*. I've been *around*. Just got nothing to blog about.

A few things have gone wrong around here lately, not the least of which was all four of us being sick with one thing or another throughout the entire two weeks of school holidays. So no knitting has been done. Well, nothing too productive at least. And quite frankly, after discovering the error I made in reading the pattern for my CPH sleeves, I've become a bit unmotivated to go on :( I will eventually finish that though, but I'm not in any hurry any more as it's clear I won't be wearing it this winter. Something to look forward to next year though.

So I'm sticking to small projects now, nothing more for myself for a while (including Green Gable, which I'll probably have to postpone until next year). I do have wool for 3 different pairs of shorties to knit up for M for this spring/summer, so I should get cracking on those if I want them all ready by the time it warms up. He also needs a few more soakers as he's growing out of the one's we do have. And of course I have the Woolaholics *Small Things Swap*, which I need to get started ASAP if I want to meet the deadline!

So plenty to keep me busy. Just no pics of anything right now. THE HAT is going ok, and I think I've got the sizing worked out now, but progress pics of that look much the same as the pic that's already up, so I'll wait until it's finished.

If you were 19 months old.....

.....where would you put your half-eaten tuna paste sandwich when you've finished with it?

Why, in the basket of wet nappies waiting to be hung out, of course!



I might add that it took me about 10 minutes to find it here, even though I walked past it about as many times looking for it! Oh to understand the mind of a toddler!


And something a bit more attractive....

I made these yesterday as a gift for someone (who doesn't read blogs I'm sure, so no chance of them being seen here), but I really like them. DH told me they are nicer than the others I have already made, so I should keep them. I do have plenty more beads here, but what to do, what to do?

The Hat

**Update**

Well, I finally finished the hat last night. At least the *hat* part, now I need to finish it off with edging, a pompom, and some "tails" as L calls them. I'm not entirely happy with how it finished up, due to two things:

1. using Magic Loop to finish off, so I didn't have to buy dpns, which seems like an easy technique (and probably is) but which got me a little messed up, but it looks ok.
2. trying to work out the decreases and rate of decrease myself, ie, not using a pattern! I'm not very mathematical, and I kind of struggled with working it out a bit, but it doesn't look too bad.

Need to wash it and I'm sure it will look better, it's a bit curly right now. But no pics until I'm completely done. I must say thank goodness too, because I'm over THE HAT!! This was the 5th attempt at it. Lucky it's supposed to get cool here again next week, cause I know we technically have another month of winter left, but it certainly hasn't felt like winter the last few days, and after all that effort if THE HAT was not worn, well, I would be a bit sad.



***Update***

I've ripped it back. I went a bit far though, and had to redo one ear flap from scratch :( and that one is slightly different to the other one, because I couldn't remember exactly what I had done, as I hadn't written it down yet. But nevermind. The difference is so miniscule that you can't tell. So it will be smaller. Hopefully it will be ok.




This my *own* hat pattern. That is, I have started it from scratch based on what I want and my stitch gauge and L's measurements, I am not following a pattern to knit it. Sounds very clever?! Not really I think. It's been quite easy, and I did do some searching around for other patterns *like* what I wanted - couldn't find what I wanted which is why I decided to just go for it myself. So I did read a few patterns and get an idea of how to do the ear flaps and continue on so that it's all one piece, but as for using a pattern, I'm not. So it's *mine* :) I'm using Blackberry Ridge Bulky merino which I purchased from Monster Knits, in "Talyn". It's lovely.

Now my problem is this. It's quite big. Quite a bit bigger than I thought it would be, which is all part of the learning experience, so I'm not totally devastated by this. It did take me a few attempts to get beyond the two earflaps with the *correct* amount of stitches, but obviously I have more than I need. It does fit. It's just not as snug as I planned, which on one hand is good because it will more than likely fit for some time. On the other hand I'm afraid that it's just going to look too big when I'm done. I'm at the point where I need to begin decreasing to finish the hat off. Also I'm afraid that I'll run out of yarn and not be able to finish it as I would like. Also not devastating because there are a number of other things I could do.

Just trying to decide whether I should rip it out and start again with less stitches or not? I would have to go back to the very beginning after the two ear flaps were done, so I'm not sure if I want to do that or not. I do have to order some dpns in the correc size to finish it off (my LYS doesn't have the correct size :( ) so I have to wait a bit. I'll think about it.

Sea Horse Dancing Longies

Finally finished these up on Saturday night. The actual knitting finished on Friday night, but I grafted the crotch and took care of the loose ends on Saturday, so that's my official finish time :)

I must say I am extremely happy with the way they have turned out, despite a few *errors* in my completion of the pattern. They are minor though, and entirely due to lack of concentration. My stitch markers kept falling off for some reason, and of course I didn't notice this immediately so I think my replacing of the markers wasn't entirely accurate. This means that they are a little skewiff if you look closely, and there's also a few more stitches on one leg than the other, due to me forgetting it was like that and just continuing to knit when I picked them up after a couple of days break. Oh well. The join where I swapped balls is visible on the front, but it's not terribly ugly and will be covered by a top mostly anyway, so I'm not bothered with that. I'm just glad I finally worked that technique out!! I just need more practice.

I did think that I would try to embellish these, but I'm undecided. I always find the yarn so beautiful on it's own that I don't want to cover it up, so I'll think about it some more.

Sock Swap

I participated in a *Sock Swap* on Woolaholics recently. You could either send 150gms of sock yarn, or you could knit socks for your swappee. I chose to send yarn because I have zero confidence in my sock knitting abilities! (being because I've only ever attempted one pair and they didn't get finished :( ).

Well, my sock yarn arrived today!! Yippee!!!



It's gorgeous. And my swappee included a cool African bookmark also. I think that L has commandeered the bookmark though, so I'll have to run a rescue mission tonight when he's in bed LOL

Thanks swappee!!

Wooly Mail

My latest purchase from Monster Knits. I am planning to make L and earflap hat out of some of it. I had planned to use the one on the right, but as soon as he saw the colourful wool he claimed it LOL Probably just as well anyway. It will make a nice warm hat. Hopefully it will be a quick knit and he'll have a new hat soon.

Sea Horses and Techniques

I finally managed to get my head around the knitting-with-two-balls thing. I know I said I had my head around it in a previous post, but turns out I actually didn't.

Now that I've worked it out it all seems so simple, but it's that written instruction thing that I obviously have a problem with. See, written instructions to anyone else might look like this:

"to change over to the new ball, knit into the stitch where the other ball is waiting, bring that ball under the ball you have been working with so you *wrap* the two balls, tug the yarn you've been working with slightly - but not too tightly - and continue knitting with the new ball"

To me, it reads like this:

"to change over to the new ball, blah blah blah blah blah, bring the what under the what? and do what with it?"

Now, I had great instructions, and since I have worked it out the instructions I was given make perfect sense and it would seem as though I'm a numnut for not being able to work it out. But really I can blame it on this visual learning thing. I had googled numerous times trying to find a video of some sort that would actually show me what I needed to do, but with no luck. I've also worked out that it helps if you google the correct thing! So after many frustrated hours reading, thinking, googling, I had a revelation. And it was almost like a religious experience! And you know what? I found what I was looking for within a matter of minutes - a video, showing me exactly what I needed to do. Phew.

Can you see where the changeover occurs? You can see it on the inside. It's slightly visible on the outside if you know what you are looking for, and somehow I managed to put the changeover right smack bang in the middle of the front of the garmet *rolls eyes*, but still, it's looking pretty invisible and hopefully this won't cause me too many problems when I split for the legs. I can blame that little mistake on concentrating so hard on the technique that I forgot to put the stitch markers on when I was supposed to and then completely forgot to factor in the yarn changeover when I eventually did put the stitch markers on *more eye rolling*.

Anyway, the Seahorse Dancing longies are absolutely off and running now. Just heading into the gusset, and if I play my cards right I could even have these finished before the weekend is out. Fingers crossed.

A Tale of Two Sleeves

Seeing as my Knit Picks set has been sitting here unused - apart from the gauge ruler - for the last 3 weeks, or however long since I received them, I decided that I would in fact attempt to knit both sleeves of my CPH simultaneously. One sleeve is on bamboo circs and the other on the Knit Picks. I think you can see which needles I prefer knitting with :)


The bamboo are nice, and I really like them, but the Knit Picks are really lovely. I think I even prefer them over addi turbos! I much prefer the pointier tip, as I often have problems getting the needles through the stitch because I knit tightly most of the time. Only problem I had with them was the tips unscrewing as I was knitting with them for the first time. Solved that problem by using THE KEY that comes with them, which I presume is for tightening the tips on enough to not unscrew? But which I thought was for something completely different. They may be, but I will say the tips are staying safely on while I knit now :) Oh, and the Knit Picks were purchased here, and for 20% off! Pretty good price for what amounts to 32 different sets of needles really. Great service there too.



Anyway, I'm firing along with these sleeves! Just need to make sure I label my chart for keeping track of the cables correctly :) Not sure if this will make it any quicker to complete, but at least I won't get second sleeve-itis.

Also making good progress on the Sea Horse longies, but no progress pics of that yet as the camera batteries have died and I don't know where the charger is :(

See The Horses Knitting Bag

My "See The Horses" knitting bag from Jacki at The Complete Fabrication arrived this morning!









I love it, it's just gorgeous! I went for a purple inner, which looks fantastic. It's so roomy on the inside too. Should be great for holding all my bits and pieces. I have two knitting bags already, which DH bought me for Christmas, which are great also, but I've been using one for storing projects that I've put on hold for now, and the other really only fits one project at a time in it, so great for that and for taking along, but not roomy enough for the extra couple of projects I've got going at the moment also. And this one would also make a great tote bag anyway, so I can use it for that and/or knitting :) Besides, I love this fabric! How many knitting bags is enough really? LOL

And here's an action shot. And for a bit of freaky knitting-synergy.... the project in the bag is my *Sea Horse Dancing* longies from my previous post.

Third times a charm

I decided I need to face my fear head on.... and I cast on the Sea Horse Dancing longies the other night. One of the reasons I've been afraid of this is because I wanted to attempt the *knitting-with-two-balls* thing, without snipping and weaving. I've tried this once before and while the garment looked *ok*, it was obvious where I'd changed over and it didn't look at all right IMO and I realised I had obviously not done it right. Not one to be beaten by a couple of balls of wool, I have tried again. It took me three goes to get it *right* (rolls eyes).

I've come to the conclusion that I am definitely a visual learner, because even after plenty of advice from the other knitting obsessed members of Woolaholics, I still couldn't work out what it was they were trying to tell me. Now, I'm sure if there were a video of how to do it in knittinghelp.com, then I'd have had it down in a flash. I'm really not good with written instructions.

But anyway, I think I've got it now. At least, what I am doing seems to be working ok for my liking, and I do not have any nasty looking holes, as was happening before. It's looking pretty good so far.

On another note, I also cast on my first sleeve for the CPH just now. It has occurred to me also, that I could attempt to do both sleeves at once, as I have my lovely new Knit Picks just sitting here crying out for attention, so I may consider this. I'll think about that possibility tonight.