Sleeves are done

Wow sleeves are long.
Very very long.
Onto the sixth ball of yarn now and wondering if I will have enough left for the body.

I can feel startitis creeping in.
It would be nice to knit something other than black.
Socks are sounding nice, or maybe a scarf, those gloves still need finishing.
Maybe I could swatch for that gusto jumper and work out a size or just go shopping for some new yarn in colours other than black.

Minute amounts of progress

Sorry Melissa I haven't received the invite yet. I will let you know when I do.

Tubey has grown a little.
The back and one sleeve is done. Another whole long sleeve to go.
Who made arms so long???
The thing I am definately loving about this is that I wont have to sew up any seams.
I hate sewing up.

I got mail!!!
Interweave knits arrived and distracted me yesterday afternoon, I love the socks, the cami tops are cute but not much else grabbed my attention.
That is untill Miss B ran off with the magazine and came back saying she likes the hand warmer thingy's. I like the handwarmers too. No fingers to make.

Tubey

Tubey is just that......... a tube. A never ending, seemingly never growing black tube.
Luckily the Debbie Bliss Aran Cachmerino is so wonderful to knit with I don't mind stretching the the knitting time to continue working with such soft yarn.
But black........ at night.... yeah, fun.....

Finally!!!

WHoot!
Finally!
This is how this post was meant to be the other day.

The Cleckheaton Gusto Blue Jumper.



I made this about two years ago, before I started reading blogs and knowing anything much about knitting other than plain and purl. It is the first jumper I ever finished. I didn't swatch, I tied knots ( I didn't know any better) , I seamed shockingly ( didn't know any better about that either). The bottom rolls up. It is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too big. I could fit me and Miss B and probably C in there too. The yarn is lovely and soft ( and cost me more than I could really afford at the time). It has been sitting lonely in the bottom of my wardrobe because I couldn't face the disaster it was. I wasn't ready to undo all that bad seaming and start over. I was trying to say it's not that bad. It's only a little bit big. Right..... In defiant kidsilk haze avoidance tactics............. this is what happened.





And then this happened Miss B's Orange socks were done.







And because Bliss made me go all gooey over her puppies........ Yes Bliss I AM blaming you :) This came home with me. Tincat.





I love her. She doesn't run off with my yarn. She doesn't sit on my knitting projects or in yarn boxes. The other cats aren't jealous in the slightest. She doesn't cost anything to feed And best of all she doesn't stink up the cat litter

Blue Gusto Jumper

This is the blue gusto jumper from the previous post. Blogger seems to be going nuts. I have tried adding pictures to the previous post yet again ( 5 times again actually) and then tried adding them to a new one. Nope, blogger just wants to eat them all.
So you get one lonley little picture.

Blogging and blogging

I have been blogging this week.

I know you can't see it. Neither can I.
Blogger keeps eating it.
Or not adding my pictures.

Apart from that I have my mail working again :)

Rachael sent me two more stitch markers that were meant to be sent with the others. YAY I love stitch markers. ( They still don't make me magically able to count but they look pretty)

Donna got her Zhivago. I was beginning to wonder if her postie person is a knitter and ran off with it. I was having visions of the postie leaning up against the mail box knitting a row before dropping of any letters.

Tiger has a cat that looks pretty similar to my Lucy, except her cat is helpful and tries to do the dishes for her.

A jumper, some socks and a cat.

The Cleckheaton Gusto Blue Jumper.

I made this about two years ago, before I started reading blogs and knowing anything much about knitting other than plain and purl.

It is the first jumper I ever finished. I didn't swatch, I tied knots ( I didn't know any better) , I seamed shockingly ( didn't know any better about that either). The bottom rolls up.

It is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too big. I could fit me and Miss B and probably C in there too.
The yarn is lovely and soft ( and cost me more than I could really afford at the time).

It has been sitting lonely in the bottom of my wardrobe because I couldn't face the disaster it was. I wasn't ready to undo all that bad seaming and start over. I was trying to say it's not that bad. It's only a little bit big.

Right.....

In defiant kidsilk haze avoidance tactics............. this is what happened.


And then this happened

Miss B's Orange socks were done.

And because Bliss made me go all gooey over her puppies........ Yes Bliss I AM blaming you :)
This came home with me.

Tincat.
I love her.
She doesn't run off with my yarn.
She doesn't sit on my knitting projects or in yarn boxes.
The other cats aren't jealous in the slightest.
She doesn't cost anything to feed
And best of all she doesn't stink up the cat litter

Mail

I tried blogging on Friday but Blogger was hungry and ate my post.

My whole computer seems to be going nuts at the moment and I can't open my mail. I guess I'll have to wait till I get to class later in the week and read it there.

Speaking of mail......... I got two packages on Friday.

One from Rachael which included some bluebell I wanted to match up with some odd balls I had here. Thanks so much Rachael.

And because she knows how badly I count she included some stitch markers and a row counter, YAY!!! Maybe I can count to 299 now :)

And from Yarnsgalore I got my super long addi needle and another 30cm one for socks. I was one short as I had given one to my Mum

The long needle is to start this total craziness. Craziness being some kind of blanket/ throw thingy where I just keep adding all the odd balls of pink and purple yarn till it is big enough or I go crazy. I will probably change my mind on this one but for now I am just playing about with it.

Kit says she doesn't care just turn the light off and let her sleep.

Knitting Kitty??

Lucy says the odd balls of yarn box is the best place to sleep.

A little detour

Yep detour, you know....... the one to spotlight when you should really be catching the bus home so you can get in an hour or so of homework before life takes over.

Spotlight were evil and are seriously trying to corrupt me, but I resisted. I only bought the 5mm circular I had gone into the store for. They have refilled their sales bins and tempted me, very mean of them.

Ok Ok I also bought this

But it's not for me. It has Donna's name all over it :)

Blue Cami

Firstly I was bad, I didn't swatch. Luckily my guage must have been pretty close for once because the cami fits.

Secondly I have a really really long torso. I kind of knew this but hadn't realized exactly how much I would need to add to the pattern.I was worried about running out of yarn so I only added an extra couple of cm to allow for this and really could have added a couple more. I like my tops to overlap my pants a little and not only just meet them. I actually ended up with a whole ball of yarn left over........ blah.

I'd also like the waist shaping at the bottom to be a little more gradual, it kind of just goes blah suddenly.


Thirdly it's sparkly. Ummmmmmm very sparkly. I'm not sure I'll ever wear it sparkly.

Fourthly, I had a lot of fun making this and have learnt a lot about my owm preferences, so definately worth the knit. Besides it was a quick knit and you got to love that :)

So no I'm not going to re knit it and add the lenght I would need. I am just going to put it aside and wait for Miss B to try and claim it, pretend I don't want her to have it.... and secretly giggle as she sneaks off with it ;)

Knitting Furiously

The Blue Cami is almost done!!! I spent most of the weekend knitting it and glaring at the kidsilk haze from accross the room.
After knitting socks for so long I had forgotten how quickly dk weight yarn knits up. I now have an almost completed project. It just needs the ends sewn in and the i cord adjusted and attatched.
It looks how it is supposed to (from what I can tell so far anyway) and is definately a much needed boost to my knitting ego after the kidsilk haze's sneaky fluffiness.
Even Miss B likes it. She wasn't sure about it to start with when it was just a circle of twisted ribbing, but now it looks like it is something else I will have to hide from her.

Blue Hands

The Blue Cami is growing nicely. The problem I am having is the blue dye coming off on my hands. The yarn is designed to fade or so it says on the label. I have no problem with that. I just didnt realise it was going to fade before I even finished making it and transfer its colour all over me.

I am wondering if it will end up being wearable as a garment once it's completed or wether I will turn blue if I even think about trying it on.

The picture makes it look black and sparkly , when really it is blue and sparkly.

The yarn is elle True Blue pure indigo dyed cotton.

LOL

Now that I've read the label properly it says:

Colour sets after the second wash.

May discolour hands when being knit up.

Well not only does it discolour hands it also dicolours keyboards due to typing with discoloured hands.

Kidsilk Haze 1 Knitter 0

Kidsilk haze is a pain in the butt. I appologize to all of you out there that love it, but right now I don't.
It is mean and sneaky and doesn't let me see what I am doing. It waits till I have cast on 299 stitches and recount them to make sure. It says 298. I count again, it says 297. I count again 299. ARGH.
I knit the first row and must have had the stitch count right , it went fine. Purl the second row , also fine.
Ok this thin yarn on biggish needles isn't so bad

Knit third row and am two stitches short........ somewhere in that long, long row I have stuffed up. Lost track of where I was up to and been momentarily distracted. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!
And with this yarn I can't seem to see what I have knitted, was it a y fwd or k2 tog or is it just a heap of pretty fluff. Bad lighting probably doesn't help.
Rip back to cast on row.

Repeat all of the above.
For some unknown reason I seem to loose concentration somewhere in the middle of the third row and for last night at least could not get past that point.

Time to give the kidsilk some space, maybe it just doesn't like the heat, and work on the blue tank.

another sock done and a cloud

I just finished one of Miss B's orange socks........ yes I know more orange and I think I am just about all socked out. I still want to make more socks and definately more Jaywalker socks. But I also want to make something other than socks for just a little while. I am seriously considering casting on for Birch, but am just a little bit frightened of that beautiful Kidsilk Haze. It looks so gorgeous in the ball, I don't want to ruin it. There is yarn that's just meant to be looked at isn't there???


And just cause I was curious to see what mine would look like.......... here is my word cloud. I thought socks and chocolate would be a lot bigger.

Finished Opal Chameleon Socks

I started with this

And ended with these

And poor Kit got woken up and wanted to see what was finished.

I'm really not happy with these socks, actually no the socks are fine, it's the yarn. It isn't very soft and the stripes are nowhere near matching up.
The dark green stripe near the gusset was a lot shorter on the second sock than on the first. A lot shorter. There was no break or knot in the yarn, it was just mis-dyed. I could have cut the yarn and joined it later to make them match, but it just seemed like a lot of work for a pair of socks I am just not loving. I figure that having spent the money on striping sock yarn that it should stripe how it says it will without me having to cut it and fiddle about with it.

I did love Lynne's comment yesterday regarding my frogpond knits. "Off with their heads" LOL It's probably what I should have been saying as I was rescuing my needles. And the yarn has found a new home with Miss B. Just because I think it's ugly and scratchy doesn't mean she does.

On saying goodbye

It's time to finally say goodbye to two knits that have been sitting in the sidebar being totally ignored the whole time I have had this blog. The blue jumper and Miss B's Blue jumper. Different yarns, different blues but both in incredibly cheap, acrylic, scratchy yarn started when I totally doubted my ability to read a pattern correctly. Both were hideous and never photographed. ( Some things you just don't want proof of)

It's time to be honest and admit that not only do I not want to knit them, but that I will NEVER knit them. Putting them on the list of ufo's did nothing to inspire me to work on them. It just increased the guilt I felt for not touching them.
But knitting is meant to be fun and I want to work on things I enjoy and with yarn that feels nice. So bye bye blue guilt inducing jumpers. They are no longer on the list, they are no longer in existence and I have some more needles back in the stash.

Now why didn't I just do that before? I feel so much better :)