What I made, by Sharon

The thing about lockdown is I seem to get a LOT of knitting done. This weekend I finished the Reagen for Rachey. It took me 12 days. The first one I knit took me 3 weeks. I hope it fitsher - I was intending to try it on her as I went, but ... lockdown. Then I started my next project, a crotchet charity blanket, knit corner to corner . It took me a couple of tries to get going - I speak crotchet as a second language, but now I've got the hang of it, and all I want to do is crotchet. I love scrappy projects, I love stripy projects and I love my occasional forays into crotchet country. 

  Apparently I only give you progress updates on the  sock yarn blanket  once a year. Last August I reported that I had decided to make it twice as wide. Since I started knitting this in 2009 I figured it might take me another decade to get it all evened up. It's not even yet, but I've made some really good progress. One of the things I did was untangle all the LOSY yarn and group it in zip lock bags. This made it much easier to see what I had, and to stop constantly icing up blue balls. It turns out I have a lot of left over blue sock yarn, and not very much brown, red or yellow. I decided to take some of my left overs, and overdye them with various shades, to get new colours: Before: After: I thought they would be more brown and less yellow, but it's all grist for the blanket mill. If I focussed I could get the blanket even by the end of the month. Since I don't particularly want to finish this project, I'll just keep picking away at it, a couple of squares a mo...

Juniper I have been working on my blankie recently, a few squares, here, a few squares there. Tarragon My goal is to do that during the year, and then get an advent calendar and knit two squares a day for those 21 days and then I'll be done and I won't know what to do with myself! Look how neatly it fits in my Porter Bin . I was struggling a bit, because I mainly knit in boring colours, and I gave away and used up most of my pretty leftovers. And then Moorecat brought some leftovers in. Look how pretty they are, and how nice they are going to look in the blanket. In more news of my lovely, lovely friends, Louisa  found 7 grams of red yarn so I wouldn't run our,  Sonia found a perfect match for my somewhat secret test knitting. While I'm now thinking i won't need Sonia's, she has lent me the skein so I  don't have to worry about running out.  Hopefully I will have finished the thing by Monday, and I can return her yarn untouched. I feel...

I finished Tir Chonail a week and a half ago, but I couldn't blog about it until I had taken photos and these proved difficult to secure. Kate Davies took photos of this as a wrap , but it's not. It's a blanket. Yes, you can wrap it around yourself, but it's still a blanket. I tried to replicate her wrap photos: It wasn't good. I promise I am actually wearing a dress under there. I didn't want to take outside photos, because it's a blanket. Should I wrap it around a tree? Place it on a hedge? (Actually, now I think about it, this would make an amazing picnic blanket) This is my favourite photo, but isn't perfect for showing the actual finished blanket, although it does show how pretty Juniper is: The wrap up of the project is that it was a whole lot of fun to knit. I went down a needle size, and increased it by a repeat in all directions, giving a finished size of 1 meter by 1.07. Instead of doing the steek sandw...

We're back from our awesome weekend away, and it was all kind of wonderful. On Friday night we drove up to Wodonga and stayed with Anna, one of the people who was coming camping with us. On Saturday we did Park Run , which I've never understood, but it was really fun. Also, I ran 5 kms in 26:49, so I was pretty pleased about that.  After that we drove up to Kancoban and it was stunning. We camped, we ran, we hiked - including Mount Kosciuszko , the tallest mountain in Australia, and generally enjoyed the outdoor life. Unlike last time I went camping with this group of people I didn't get all that much knitting done.   This time I got a lot done, maybe because there was more driving involved. This is where I steeked my blanket: After the drive home, I've nearly finished the border. A great weekend, and a great deal of knitting  done.

Firstly, how am I half way through this blanket already? I'm doing eight repeats, which is one more than the pattern calls for, and I thought it would take a lot longer.  The pattern is lovely, and easy enough once I got it started. Kate Davies describes it as "not having long floats". Really? One row has elven stitch floats, and another has nine. I've learnt to catch my floats, turns out it's pretty easy, and worth it for the really long ones. I'm not sure about doing a colourwork blanket in aran weight yarn. It is very, very thick. Maybe that's why Kate Davies knit hers on 5mm needles, but I was concerned that the colours would show through, so I'm knitting on 4.5mm needles. I'm also a little bit worried about the yarn - Wendy Traditional Aran . I wanted something that would wear better than the Cascade 220 I made Elise's last blanket from, and this certainly ticks that box. It feels like it will never pill or wear. The downside of ...

I'm not sure there is anything much more to be said about my Rams and Yowes blanket, except I finished it, blocked it and I love it. I love the front, I love the back, I love the fact that it is 9 natural sheepy colours and matches my cats. I love the way it looks hanging over the back of my rocking chair. I knit the pattern pretty much as written, although I didn't pick up as many stitches for the border - a ratio of one to one, which is what the pattern called for given many people a wavy border, so I followed my feeling and picked up fewer stitches. It came out quite well. The other thing I did was not purling the border. the method i used was not perfect, and if I was to do it again I would certainly try a different method. This took me a month of continuous, monogamous knitting and I loved every stitch of it. I love Kate Davies ' designs, her attention to detail and eye for colour and this blanket has only deepened my love for her and her design ...

This week I have been travelling a bit for work, by train as usual. Out the window of the train I have seen sheep, alpaca and goats. It's really hard to get a photo from the window of a moving train, you'll have to trust me when I say that this is a field full of sheep: I have also been knitting sheep, most specifically Kate Davies Rams and Yowes blanket. I am loving this so far. While the pattern looks complicated it is fairly intuitive, and you know how I love Kate Davies, colourwork and Shetland wool. Throw in the fact that it is natural sheep coloured, and I'm happy as can be. I'm listening to Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott. (and I can't link to it on  Audible, because of stupid digital rights management) I am loving it. I tried to read it when I was too young, in a copy that had very small print. I found it difficult and I didn't get through it. Now I realise it is a rollicking tale, and the long descriptive passages make it ideal for audio. ...

This winter is cold. Very cold. Actually colder than last year. In fact this has been the coldest July in ten years. I'm cold, and being cold makes me grumpy. So, given my love affair with Kate Davies, and Jamieson and Smith yarn, and how much I am really not enjoying this winter, I ordered a Rams and Yowes blanket kit! I'm really excited about it, although a bit scared because there is a LOT of colourwork knitting in this blanket. Still, it's all in stunning, natural sheep coloured Shetland yarns, so I imagine I will enjoy it thoroughly. 

At Richmond Knitters on Monday night I mentioned that I am "working" on a sock yarn blanket. Working in the broadest sense of the word. I've blogged about it exactly once , way back in 2011, and rarely add even the odd square. Yesterday I went to Traralgon for work - two hours there and two hours back - so I got the Fair Isle socks finished,    And I thought it would be really fun to use the three colours on the socks for three adjoining squares.  So I did. The blanket is slowly growing, I think I might be somewhere near the halfway point. Obviously it would grow faster if I knit on it more often, although now is not the time really, since it's the middle of summer and has finally become hot. At the very least, I want to get in the a habit of knitting a square every time I finish a four ply project. By my calculation last year I used a total of 23 different sock weight yarns, on jumpers, shawls and of course socks. So this year I am aimi...

I finally got the ends of the hap blanket sewn in. Then I blocked it. Knitting this was an unusual process for me, I did the garter stitch central square, and then put it aside while I knit Owlet. Then I did the lace edging, and put it aside while I knit skew. I finally got the ends sewn in, and then it sat around for a bit before I blocked it. (There was NO WAY possible to get a picture without Tarragon, so i just went with it) Now it's done and I'm happy with it. It will be gifted to Elise next week and I think she'll love it too, presuming her Bengal's don't have the same fondness for fibre in their diets as mine does. I found the feather and fan lace quite fun once I got the hang of it, and I loved, loved, loved, knitting something huge and warm that sat on my lap like a big warm cat. This has inspired me to make another bathmat while it is still chilly, so I can carry my own warmth with me wherever I go. But first, a green cardigan, because I just c...