What I made, by Sharon

This post contains more discussion about a bunch of things I've written about before -destashed yarn, sock needles and sneaker liners. Last Monday MooreCat destashed some left over sockyarn, and I snagged 50 grams of Arne and Carlos self stripping Regia. She warned me that it was only 50 grams - which is enough for a pair of Sneaker Liners for me and my size 6 feet.   On Friday I cast on some Rose City Rollers. I took the opportunity to knit with the KnitPicks wooden 5inch 2mm that I bought after socktober last year. I enjoyed them but in two small socks I broke two of them, so they are not really a viable long term plan. I finished the sock on 2mm Karbonz, which were ok, but not perfect. I'm hoping someone at EYF has the new Addi needles to try. I finished the sneaker liners on Sunday - I had enough yarn left over to do a square on my sock yarn blanket. Now onwards, to knit some garishsocks for my father . I do love the way the colours in the socks reflect the colo...

I did reknit the mittens , because I just wasn't happy with them, and it was going to bother me. I'm going to knitters convention, and I don't want to embarrass myself! I decided to use the Stasis motif, and transpose it onto Kate Davies' Ursula mittens . The two patterns have the same stitch count, so that kept everything very simple.  I'm really happy with them. I think I might have gone a leeeetle bit overboard with the set, but, well, go matchy, matchy, matchy, matchy or go home, as the saying goes.

My father is having a birthday, and I've been musing about what to get him. We all know he likes his socks crazy,  After all the colourwork I've done this year, I'm in desperate need of some plain stocking stitch. Also, I've got a ball of flouro yellow Patonyle in my stash. Also also, I've still got dye made up from my dyeing experiments from last month . So I took this: Dripped on some dye And got this: I love this method of dyeing. It's very simple, very fun, very not messy and the results are amazing. I can't wait to see how this knits up. I think they might be the craziest, funnest socks yet.

I made a dog jumper! Look how cute it is:  Oh wait, that's Tarragon. I used him as a fit model while I was knitting it. It turns out that he and George are similar sizes which might come in handy for future dog jumpers: I used this Drops Designs pattern. Those patterns used to scare me, because they are designed for knitters who have some idea what they are doing - the instructions are relatively brief, and this had three charts, but it was actually a straightforward knit. I'm really happy with it. The yarn, which I scored a couple of weeks ago as part of Kris' destash, is perfect. The other thing is, I haven't knit cables for a while, so it was fun to be back at it. when I looked at ravelry to see how long it had been, I discovered that I haven't knit on needles bigger than 3.5mm all last year. 

This last week I knit a Cochal cowl, in colours and pattern to match my Stasis jumper , socks, and hat (we won't talk about the mittens). It's from Kate Davies' 7 Skeins Club - I have now knit, or attempted to knit - all 11 patterns from that club (there is a fail mitten story there too) It was a really easy, fun knit. So easy that I finished it at Geelong Beer festival, and made Leon take photos on the train on the way home. After it was blocked the edge curled a bit less, but I'm fond of these photos, so I'm using them. It isn't the designs fault that the edge curls, I changed it to a i-cord cast on and cast off and then went into a few rows of stocking stitch, rather than the garter called for in the pattern, to help it look more like my Scottish set. I also left off the last couple of repeats - I think it is plenty long enough, and I was worried that if I knit it any longer it wouldn't sit nicely round my neck And one final pictu...

I have been using the same mug at work since I cannot remember when. Possibl ly since I got back from traveling in 2004. I'm very attached to my mug - my mother bought it for me when I was 8, and it had my name on it. I drink a lot of tea at work - rosehip, peppermint,  green, chai, black, you name it, and I just rinse it out after every use. In 2012, Cheryl, the department head's PA, started getting distressed at the build up of tannin, and kidnapped my mug and cleaned it. Then, in my last role Brendan who sat next to me was very distressed about the way the inside of my mug looked. I thought it was hilarious. I had last Thursday out of the office and accidentally left my mug in the kitchen, rather than on my desk and I came back to this: My new colleague had scrubbed it clean! I think she was trying to be nice, but its going to take me another 6 years to rebuild the tannin art that was on the inside of that mug! In the meantime, onwards with tea to get me through my w...

When blogged about the tension problems, I knew there was another problem, and I thought i would just photograph them so it didn't show. And then I thought, nah, lets be honest here: I started the first thumb while watching the original Flatliners movie. It is quite suspenseful and tension making. For some reason this mitten had been designed with "lice" on one side of the thumb, but not on the palm of the hand. I decided to follow the pattern, at least I thought I was following the pattern. I wasn't sure which side was circles and which side was lice. I had a look at the pattern picture, which clearly (to my mind) showed the thumb showing circles from the wrong side, so that's how I knit it: Copyright belongs to Kathy Lewiski, the designer It didn't seem quite right, but I wasn't paying that much attention. Bottle of wine, exciting movie holding my attention, and I try not to look at other screens when I'm watching a movie. In the morning...

I knit the first mitten using the colour dominance thing I usually do, which involves holding the background yarn in my left hand. This is not conventional, but it works for me. there has been some discussion amongst the Richmond Knitters (and Deb specifically) about how to hold yarns when doing colour work. I found the videos under discussion here , but I probably should have watched the before   doing my misguided experiment. The left mitten was knit first, as described above. For the second mitten I did a bit with the yarn in one hand (as I thought Deb said Arne and Carlos recommended, although now I've watched the videos I don't think that's what they are saying) and then, when I quickly realised that wasn't going to work, I put the main colour in my right hand, contrast colour in my left. And the resulting disaster is not an issue of colour dominance. As Arne and Carlos say - it's about tension, and my tension is terrible. the second mitten is noticeably sm...

I'm still knitting away on my mittens for Scotland. I'm still going to make a matching cowl when I'm done. But I'm obsessing over the project after that - Kate Davies  Carraig Fhada  vest from the Inspired by Islay collection. It's the only jumpers worth of yarn I have in stash right now, and knitting a Kate Davies colourwork pattern seems appropriate, given that I am  about to go to Scotland, here her speak, go to Islay and then walk past her back gate. So this afternoon I balled up the yarn, sort of did a gauge swatch (I measured the gauge on a bunch of things that I've knit out of Buachalle, Leon said "oh great, now you know what your gauge was two years ago. What a smart arse. But also, how much has he learnt about knitting?) I've got my pattern printed, my needles out, four week and 2 days until I fly out, and two projects to finish first. Lets do this!

I often wear knee high socks around my house of an evening, they are part of my "loungewear" collection. I've currently got four pairs, but I've been consistently reaching for this mauve pair, mainly because they are warm and comfortable and had been at the top of the pile. The other day when I put them on I found a weird draft on my big toe. Normally I would darn a hole, but I have already darned both socks at the heels and the balls of the feet, and the yarn around the darns is getting thin too.   When I looked to see when I made these, I discovered it was 2010. In fact I mention them in passing on my first ever blog post! So I sadly said good by to them, knowing they have done good service and were well worn.

I am still reading Assassin's Quest . I love this book, and am so glad that when I finish this - the last book in the first trilogy, there are still 6 books to go. Robin Hobb's worldbuilding is magnificent, and her writing is close to flawless. I am knitting Cornwell Spring Mittens .  They are a similarish pattern to my hat , socks and jumper for walking the West Highland Way . You know how I love some matchy matchness. I thought I might be totally sick of the yarn and pattern by now, but the love is still going strong. Which is good, because I still have a matchy matchy cowl to go.  I am linking up with " It's Monday What are you reading ?' hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date, and the now monthly YarnAlong, hosted by Ginny at Small Things .  

 A while back I decided that on my Scottish holiday, I would knit What the Fade . Miles of brioche, followed by kilometres of garter stitch. Perfect. The shawl needs 6 colours of yarn to create the fade. Last week, as I mentioned, Suzanne brought some yarn, and I snagged two skeins of a lively light blue. I thought I could use one of them in this project, but then I decided it was too plain. So I dyed it, using the drip technique I experimented with last week:  The original yarn at the top, the "improved" version below.  I'm really happy with it, it's got a bit of craziness to it that I love and I think this shawl needs. Now I have four of my six colours. The Lang Colori has silver thread through it. I'm going to buy the final two colours at EYF, and look for pinks and yellows to blend with that skein.

A couple of weeks ago, to prepare for Ballarat Beer festival , I cast on a baby jumper. My cousin in England is having a baby soon and I'm seeing her parents when we go to Scotland, so I thought a baby jumper would be in order. I cast on Ysolda's wee Envelope , because I've knit it before, it's cute and I figured it would be easy. It wasn't. I really struggled with the instructions, I had to pull out half the back and it was generally not good knitting mindless knitting. I've also messed up the neckline, it's bigger on one side. Luckily that blocked out. I am now knitting a heavily cabled dog jumper, which is not mindless at all. Fun, but three different cha rts . Today I had first aid training. I cast on a baby hat to match wee Envelope on the tram on the way in.  By the end of the day, my first aid knowledge was refreshed, and I had a perfect little baby hat. It was mindless, it was satisfying it was fun, and now it's finished. I think they...