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.