Wicked

Chatting away, scrunching up her arms to fit them in the pic and relaxing

with a cup of tea is Wicked.

Pattern: Wicked

7 balls of Angora Supreme

4.5mm addi turbo

I decided on 3/4 length sleeves and no pocket.

I loved working on Wicked. I loved the Angora Supreme and I loved being able to try her on along the way.

I think I spent more time trying her on than I did actually knitting some days, but then I also dragged it out to make the knitting last .

Another sleeve to go

Wicked just needs another sleeve. I need some time to actually knit that sleeve.

This is so frustratingly close to being done that I want to ignore the world and just get it done.

Life of course has other plans.

Plans like the Mt Pleasant Fiber Festival that Tigers and I went to on Saturday with the girls.

The fiber festival where I was remarkably restrained and didn't purchase any yarn.

No yarn came home with me at all. This was partly due to lack of lighting near the handpainted yarns, I can't choose something if I can't see it; and partly due to my plan of not buying small amounts of yarn that I end up not knowing what to do with.

I still have the purple handspun I purchased last year which I can't decide if it is destined for mittens or socks.

I left the fleece behind too, same story, I still have last years taunting me that I have never learnt to spin.

I was hoping to find a swift but didn't see one.....

Books... My wishlist included Stephanie Japel's Fitted Knits and Favourite Socks.

I came home with Fitted Knits and am waiting for Favourite Socks to arrive.

Miss B's list consisted of ....... Fudge.

She found fudge and was happy.

New additions

To my knitpicks options set

I took advantage of Donyale's 10% blogger's discount and free postage for June and July special. Therefore I was able to satisfy my urge to buy everything I wanted to add to my original collection all at once.


The 9mm, 10mm and 12mm tips that weren't part of the original set. Another lot of 4.5mm and 5.5mm tips seeing as they are the ones I use the most. Some extra pockets and of course extra cords so I can try and knit even more things all at once.

Now it's purple's turn

The Project Spectrum triad of purple, orange and brown has arrived and it feels like I have been waiting for this segment of project spectrum since the begining.

Purple is a colour that I really like and yet I don't seem to work with it very often. I am particular about the shades of purple that I like and often end up taking blue or pink yarn home instead.

Brown is pretty low in my preference list generally and often only makes it's way into my basket for the purpose of making C a beanie. Having said that there is a Noro combination with purples and brown in it that I'd like to play about with.

Orange. Miss B likes orange. I don't mind it on other people but I really don't like it for myself.
I think the only orange in my stash is a splash of orange in a multicoloured ball of sockyarn.
I seriously doubt orange will get a look in during the next two months.

Purple obviously has priority for me during this triad and so far my present list of projects to work on consists of:


Wicked.
I am loving this.












Sidar Eternity Pullover.






And for some brown I have the adore socks on the needles.







What's on your list???

How long does it take to knit a sleeve?

Thankyou all so much for the Birthday wishes.

Miss B loved the idea that you were all thinking about her and wishing her such a great day.



The kitchen did survive and no the birthday girl did not have to clean up.

Luckily for me she didn't make as much mess as I had been dreading.



As for the title of this post, I have only just finished the second sleeve of the Ribby Pullover.

It took me 2 weeks. Can you tell I really don't enjoy the DPN/ ribbing combination???



Actually it's not that bad once you settle into it and I did have some help in diverting my attention away from the sleeve.



Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows insisted on being read and......



after seeing it knit up over at Donna's this yarn insisted on coming out to play.

Miss B is 14 today!!!

The last couple of years we have bought birthday cakes, but this year Miss B wants to make her own.

She has some idea of decorating it with an Emilystrange theme.
I am not sure what she is envisioning, I just know that it requires green lollies.
Lots and lots of green lollies.

So tonight there will be

1 teenager
1 mixer
Bowls
Spoons
1 Oven
1 Cake
Cream
Icing
& Assorted lollies in my kitchen.

Most of the lollies will be eaten before the cake even makes it into the oven I am sure.

All I know is that she was one happy teenager this morning after opening presents that feed her Emilystrange addiction, and after all that sugar tonight she will be even happier.

Ravelry got me.

Just in time to go back to classes I get my Ravelry invite.

I'll be playing as

yarnsticksbooks

Ribby Pullover

Here is the start of the Ribby Pullover.





Ok so it's half done and I am already thinking grey wasn't such a good idea colour wise.

It is nice after the brightness of the cleckheaton country silk, but depending on the lighting this looks grey/ muddy brown.



Remind me that it really wouldn't hurt to make myself a jumper in black.



I loved knitting the body in the round. The sleeves not so much.
Ribbing and DPN's is a combination that I can manipulate easily enough. I just don't like to, therefore sleeves progress very slowly.

I am considering buying a small circular to do the other sleeve on.

This is something I probably should avoid; I can envision the different sized sleeves already.

Early morning happenings

Miss B went to her Nanna's last night and so wasn't here for our evening meal. Chicken Schnitzel, mashed potato, corn on the cob , carrot, brocoli, beans and gravy.

Yay! Extra mashed potato for me.

I then spent the night dreaming about eating the extra piece of schnitzel for breakfast.

As those of you with teenagers in your households know, this is a big deal.
There are never leftovers after a meal and if by some miracle there are, they are quickly claimed by the constantly hungry teenager.
(If teenagers don't claim the leftovers, the cats are next in line.)

I got up this morning thinking about schnitzel, put on some socks cause it's cold and started walking out to the kitchen.

I get to the doorway of my bedroom and UGH!!!
Slushy. Wet. Sock.
During the night Lucy somehow picked up on my breakfast plans and decided to let me know she didn't approve.

I am not hungry now, I have odd socks on and Lucy is sleeping with a big grin on her face.






I think I'll go and knit.

Holidays

I am loving this lot of holidays, just enjoying the break from deadlines and having to be places at certain times.

I have been spending a lot of time doing a lot of not much. Sitting in the sunshine, playing with the cats and guilt free knitting.

Catching up on blog lines and drinking way too many cups of tea.

Shopping for yarn with Tigers, and convincing ourselves that the yarn we bought in the first store doesn't resemble the yarn we bought in the second store in any way.
The fact that both of my purchases were of the same brand means nothing.
Actually it may mean that I end up with knitted items that I can wear together for once. Or not.



Miss B is happy, her cap is done.




Cabled Newsboy Cap from Stitch and Bitch Nation.
5mm and 6mm needles
Cleckheaton Country 12 ply in Black.

Now that hers is done I am thinking I'd like a black one too. Me who doesn't wear hats. I just want one, same as I want a beret that I wont wear either.



To make Chris happy and show that I do have arms, although most days I could do with a couple of extra ones.......




Cleckheaton Country Silk raglan sleeve roll neck jumper.

Cleckheaton Country Silk 13 balls
Colour Overly bright berry
4mm needles

I added 5cm extra to the length meaning I worked 40cm of the body before starting shaping for the arms.
I am still undecided about how this looks but I love how it feels.
It is comfortable and warm and I'd like another jumper that fits like this but in something not so bright. The sleeves could be about 1cm longer too.

It's Done...

The Cleckheaton Country Silk roll neck jumper is done.

Finally. All finished.

And I'm still not sure if I like it or not.

It is warm and comfortable, it's just bright. And bitsy.

I am happy to have it done and off the list of WIP's.

I forgot to get Tigers to take a picture for me, hence you only get to see part of it.

In other knitting news, I gave in, I started Miss B's Black Newboy Cap.

C has put in requests for black knits also.

I have put in a request for black yarn to be purchased by someone other than me.

Let's see what happens.

Is it holidays yet???

I feel as though the most I have seen of any knitting lately has been to wash a bathtub full of knits and have them sitting all over the house taking their time to dry.

If I am not going to get much knitting time I can at least have some new yarn to look at.
Sock yarn found in Lincraft yesterday in a sneaky visit on the way home.




June's Project Spectrum projects, Irish Hiking Scarf and Mittens.

Both made using cleckheaton Country 12 ply, % balls for the scarf, two for the mittens.





The hat in the middle is the Newsboy cap made in Paton's Jet.
Miss B is trying to claim this. She hasn't succeeded so far so has put in her demand, uh, request for one in black.

Mittens Schmittens.......

After finishing the Irish Hiking Scarf I wanted some mittens to go with it.
Sounds logical, even sounds pretty simple.

So why did I spend the weekend knitting a pair of ginormous mittens?

Something to do with ladies mittens not being big enough to not squash fingernails and me totally underestimating how much bigger mens mittens are.

No wonder I like Fetchings so much.........

Letting go

Sometimes a knit just isn't working, you know it but you keep trying anyway. You knit a couple of rows here and a couple of rows there. But the whole time you really aren't enjoying it.
You don't like the look of it, you don't like how it feels and working on it has become a chore.

Yet if you put it aside and work on things you enjoy, you feel guilt. You know it really wouldn't take long to finish if you just worked on it.

The knit has become more than a chore, it has become a burden.
Something that sits quietly in it's basket niggling at you and taking away the pleasure of knitting.

Realistically this is only my own expectations of what I should make, should finish and how long something should take me to do that is niggling at me.

Yes, I could work on that scarf, I could finish it and it probably wouldn't take that long.
But I am not enjoying it and knitting is meant to be fun.
I really don't know why I have so much trouble admitting when something isn't working, why I have to keep trying and trying.

Yarn can be un knitted.
It can be rewound.
It goes back in the stash all too easily. Once you start. Bye Bye lace scarf.


So winding and placing yarn back into the stash happened yesterday creating space for something I want to work on. Something I have wanted to make since I first discovered blogland.

The Irish Hiking Scarf.

UFO Update

I seem to have gotten over the sniffly cold just in time for C to share his viral thingy with me.

Blah, there are times when sharing is NOT a good thing.

To distract myself from feeling crappy I went through the knitting basket and had a look at the UFO's.

Mistake ridden shawl which I just don't want to knit anymore = May's Frogged Project

Next up is the lace scarf.
C keeps making comments about this looking like his Nanna's curtains.

I already have doubts about this scarf. It was gfoing to be for someone else but I am really not loving it and I don't know that they will.
This may become June's frogged project.
What do you think?

Back to where I started from.....

A few more little projects that snuck their way on to my list.

A grey beanie for C.
Odd decrease placement, but it fits.
This was knit in Liza Leo, which is an alpaca, linen, wool blend.
It sounds nice but is is horrible to work with and seems to go out of shape as you knit it.
I have some more of this yarn but I have a feeling it will be returned to the store.




Something I am much happier with is how well Miss B's Mittens turned out.
Made with Totem yarn that I snaffled for $1 a ball. Sometimes it pays to look under the clearance table.

And now, maybe I can pay some attention to the cleckheaton jumper.

Or maybe something else will jump out and distract me.............

Unravelling

Unravelling is what you spend your time doing once you go back and look at any knitting you did while you had a cold.

The cleckheaton counrty silk jumper was almost done. Front, back and both sleeves were knit.

I got ready to seam and looked at the pieces again. Something was wrong.
It looked a little........... short.

Yep, I had forgotten to add the extra length I normally add to anything I want to actually wear. With my head all clogged up I had blindly followed the pattern and was left with something that would probably even have been too short for Miss B.

So riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip it went, back to the armhole shaping.


Casting on isn't such a great idea when your head is all clogged up either. It involves counting........

So last night I cast on, yet again.
This time it is mittens for Miss B.

I had planned........

Last week

I had planned on having the Country Silk jumper all knitted, seamed and finished over the weekend.

I had planned on posting a project spectrum related post.

I had planned on answering Katie's tag for 7 random things.

I had planned on finishing that another sneaky beanie that made it to the list.

I had planned on starting a new project.

What happened instead was

I ended up with a lovely snotty cold type of thing with bonus nausea that makes you feel crappy and unable to think properly.

Miss B spent several days exhibiting teenage behaviour in ways that seemed to take enormous amounts of time and effort to work through. Just what you need when you are already feeling crappy.

I spent a crazy amount of time searching the internet for tafe related purposes, (I swear they hide these things on purpose). Knitting related activities are so much easier to find.

I did manage to cast on a new project. Yep that's it. Cast on is all I did.

Sneaky little things

Just when I thought I had the WIP list under control a few sneaky little things jumped in front of the que.



First was C's Brown Beanie.



This is the second one of theese I have made for him and somehow I made this one a little too short. ( Avoiding ribbing......... no not me........)



So now it is fixed.



Next was another beanie, this time for Miss B.

I figured if she is going to run off with my scarf she may aswell have a beanie to go with it.

Only thing is, now thats it's done, it really doesn't go with the scarf. Ah well.
At least it will be warm.




Back to my knitting




The start of the roll neck jumper







using Cleckeaton Country Silk in the berry colour.

I can't decide if I like this or not. Some days I really like the brightness and other days I have no idea what I was thinking.
The bits throughout are bigger than I was envisioning and I tend to think it looks a bit worn out and 'bitsy' without even being finished.

On the upside it is really nice to knit with and I have someone waiting to claim it if I hate it when it's done.

Isn't mum nice? She is making a blanket just for meeeeeeeeee.

More FO's

My So Called scarf is done amd I love it. Unfortuantely so does Miss B.

The only good thing about her liking it is that I have an excuse to make another one for myself.
That would involve buying more yarn, what a pity.




Also done are Dashing.

These I'm not so sure about.
I think it's the extra length on the arms , it feels weird.



Slowly my WIP list is going down and it feels good to not have so many projects hanging over my head.
As much as it was fun to cast on the second I found something I wanted to make, having so many projects going at once became a burden.
I felt pressure to work on this, and then, no I should be working on that.
It just took all the fun out of knitting and I found that really hard to accept.
For me knitting has always been fun and when it wasn't....... I felt a bit lost.

So for now I will keep working on those WIP's and add a frogpond item to the rotation every now and again.

Although I really, really would like to cast on for the Ribby Pullover.................