The northern monkey knits and natters

Podster Mitts - FO

2012-01-24T14:47:00.000Z

I must apologise again for being a terrible blogger, I really am sorry. Finding the time (and daylight, really failing where daylight is concerned!) to take photographs and get them uploaded has been proving difficult. I should make more of an effort but frankly the times when I am free I find myself putting napping or slumping doing not much at all ahead of blogger! Very naughty I know.

Enough of apologies though, everyone is busy sometimes and that's all there is to it!

What I did achieve at the weekend (between the napping and attempting to relax) was a finished pair of Podster Mitts, huzzah!

I LOVE them. They do the job perfectly, I can use my touch screen phone whilst keeping the rest of my hands warm and whilst we've not had a winter like last year it has been pretty nippy lately so my fingers are grateful.

I am considering a little button to secure the mitten top when wearing them as fingerless gloves, I have some lovely little wooden ones that would go just perfectly. I'm not sure though as they don't flap about particularly so I may just leave them as they are. I do love buttons though...

To my relief I had enough yarn, I even have a little left over but not much. It's lovely yarn and feels like it will be really hardwearing. I bought it at a lovely little shop called Create in Ilkley but for those without access to Ilkley the dyer has an Etsy shop as well. Not that I'm encouraging stash enhancement you understand, it's just in case you were wondering.

Needle sizes, pattern and all that jazz are on my Ravelry project page.

I am now being a very good girl and have gone back to my WIP pile, details on what I'm knitting from that will come at some point I'm sure.

Also for anyone interested (and I'm not sure whether anyone is) my other WIP is progressing very well and is now two thirds done!

Podster Gloves - WIP

2012-01-15T17:42:00.000Z

You remember all those WIPs I mentioned? The ones I intended to either finish or frog? Well I promise I'll get round to them but...but...but... I cast on something new.

New year, new project. I just couldn't help myself.

I've wanted to knit myself a pair of Podster Gloves for ages, apparently the pattern was published in September 2009 and I suspect I've been eyeing them up since then. I just never really got round to it. Back in September 2009 I was still very much learning, had knit a pair of socks but was intimidated by the skills needed for the gloves. Instead of braving it I filed them away for future knitting. By the time I was at a point where the pattern didn't look remotely scary I had far too many other interesting things to knit!

I decided 2012 would be the year I'd knit them, get them done before Baby Monkey arrives and throws all my knitting plans out of the window. Also I did get an iPhone about a month ago so they seem a more useful item to have than ever. We'll ignore my "I'm never knitting gloves again" from when I finished the green gloves for my mum over Christmas, let's pretend that never happened.

I went in the stash, this is good, stash reduction! The yarn wasn't a particularly long term resident, purchased in December 2010.

It's Ba T'at sock yarn in Pheasant. Considering how well behaved I was on the yarn buying front in 2011 this may actually be my most recent sock yarn purchase, shocking. I'm not 100% on that though. Anyway it is lovely stuff, 100% merino and technically sport weight not sock yarn. It feels like it should be very hard wearing and I love the colours.

It's knitting up nicely and the pattern is very clear and easy to follow. I've actually progressed beyond what I have pictures of and am already knitting the fingers of the second glove but here are two progress shots of the first glove.

I knit the first glove but have saved knitting the mitten top part until I've finished the second glove for fear of running out of yarn. I should have enough but should and will are not the same thing! At least this way I'll definitely have a pair of fingerless gloves should I have yarn for the mitten tops.

I'll get on to the WIP pile soon, honest.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T18:26:00.000Z

Hello 2012! Also hello to my third year of blogging (technically I suppose that's tomorrow as my first post was 2nd January 2010) and hello to another year as a knitter.

I am terrible at sticking to resolutions so I don't make them but I'm OK with at least having knitting plans or hopes for the year. Obviously 2012 is going to be a bit different for me to other years as some time in late April or possibly early May a little person is going to arrive on the scene and I suspect they will be taking up most if not all of my knitting time, at least at first. That means my knitting plans for 2012 are actually only plans for the first 4 months of 2012, any knitting I achieve beyond that is a bonus.

1. Finish or frog - I ended 2011 with a pretty shameful number of WIPs, perhaps not compared to some people but it was still more than I'm comfortable with. They need to go, either to be finished or frogged. I must not end 2012 with any of these projects still lurking in my knitting basked, in fact I'd rather they were out of the basket or at least being worked on steadily before the end of February at the latest.

2. Colourwork - This came up last year and was ignored, I will not ignore it this year. I intend to complete one piece of colourwork knitting before the baby arrives just to prove to myself that I can do it and it's not really that scary.

3. Stashdown - I was pretty good at not buying new yarn last year, I must continue that. I still have a lot in my stash, more than enough. I should knit from it. This is not a complete ban on purchases but I must end 2012 with less yarn than I started with. I would count what I have to be sure but that's just too scary. Instead I'll just try to use as much of it as possible and not buy new if there is something suitable already stashed, there almost certainly will be something suitable already stashed! This is particularly important as we're hoping to move house soon and we are having to bring in lots of baby things so sacrifices must be made, not buying yarn is a pretty easy one when I could practically open my own shop anyway.

I think that's enough for 2012, I don't want to doom myself to failure and of course my biggest goal for the upcoming year is to have a healthy and happy baby and honestly nothing else really seems to matter much anymore.

I hope 2012 brings exciting things to everyone and is happier than 2011 which may have been exciting for me but which I also know was pretty sad generally for a lot of people and for the state of the world.

2011 in knitting

2011-12-31T14:06:00.001Z

So, the end of another year. Time to look back on what I've been knitting over the last 12 months.

I must say that 2011 wasn't great in terms of knitting output. It all started quite well but then things got a bit hectic in the summer and then, well then we found out about the upcoming new addition to our family! I was very lucky to not really suffer with morning sickness, unfortunately I did suffer with crushing exhaustion and lethargy and even picking up my knitting needles felt like far too much effort. This meant I only finished 6 items in the second half of the year.

Oh well, let's have a look at what I've knit in 2011...

6 pairs of socks
3 adult sized cardigans (admittedly most of one was knit in 2010 but I finished it in 2011!)
1 adult sized jumper
1 neck warmer
1 adult hat
1 baby hat
2 gadget socks
1 pair of gloves

That's just over one item a month. I have also finished the year with 6 WIPs still on the needles (one is currently missing from my Ravelry project page but I'll get on it) which is pretty poor. I really need to finish or frog those.

Oh and there is one more FO I'll share at the end of the post.

Looking back on my knitting goals from last year...well...erm.

2011 Knitting Goals
Finish blasted cardigan of doom <---did this!
Learn how to do colourwork (I've knit a little on my Christmas stockings but I want to do more and do it faster) <---nope
Design my own project (I got a "design your own knits" book last Christmas which I've flicked through but I haven't attempted to do it, I'll probably go for socks) <---nope
Knit 12 pairs of socks (got to have this one in there!) <---sadly not but I did manage 6 pairs
Knit another adult sized garment from stashed yarn <---yay! I actually knit THREE adult sized garments from my stashed yarn
Reduce stash (ha!) <---I think so, it's definitely three jumpers and a few pairs of socks lighter at least and I didn't buy much yarn

Also a quick share of my final finished object of 2011, the little red cardigan for our baby! Just a note that our baby's gender is remaining a mystery until birth so any knits will be in bright colours or more neutral shades anyway. Also I think babies look awesome in bright colours, who needs pastels?!

My project page with details of pattern, yarn, needles and so on can be found here. Please excuse the wild variations in colours in the pictures, it is a bright red shade but we're still finding our way around the settings on the new camera!

Hope all my readers (and people who don't read, just everyone generally!) has a wonderful 2012...I'll try to be back tomorrow with my knitting plans for the next 12 months.

Little knits for little people are very quick

2011-12-30T09:52:00.000Z

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that Father Christmas left some lovely things in your stockings or under the tree. Mr NM and I received the rather exciting present of a fancy new camera. It's very exciting and shiny, I just have to work out how to use it now!

This year was low on the knitterly gifts but that was my choice. I know my knitting time will be very much eaten into in the new year and so did not want to get masses of yarn and books and needles that would only be added to the stash and not utilised. I did however get the latest Yarn Harlot book and a book from the One Skein Wonders set of books, perhaps it will encourage me to use up some stash before April!

Another little someone-to-be got some knitting goodies though as my mother-in-law pointing out, the baby can't knit, oh dear! I had to do it for him or her then, blast!

Mr NM had very sweetly picked out a cardigan pattern, some scrummy red yarn and some adorable little teddy bear buttons. It is vitally important to play with your new toys on Christmas day so I cast on (and Mr NM played with the camera)

I have shots in various stages of the knitting process...

Also that last picture, that's the window in my in-laws' living room, it overlooks the Albert Dock and is a pretty special view. I like being in a house but their flat does make city centre living rather tempting at times...not that we could afford it!

Anyway I knit and knit and it grew very quickly, I suppose that's the way things are when you're knitting such teeny tiny garments! Yesterday, finally back home, I picked up the stitches for the right button band, I have a picture of the picked up part but it was dark by the time I'd finished and I didn't bother with another picture.

Now I just need to knit the right button band, sew it all together and give it a little bath to even out the stitches, then I'm done! Super quick and actually good fun to knit. I'm sure I'll have FO pictures to share very soon.

For those interested in such things (and I know people are) the yarn is Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK in Teddy Red, the most accurate picture for colour (on my monitor at least) is the picture of the back of the cardigan on top of the knitting pattern. It is an absolute dream to knit with, so soft and such lovely stitch definition, I rather wish I was knitting a cardigan for myself with it!

Accidental Christmas knitting

2011-12-24T23:24:00.000Z

We're at the in-laws, all ready for Christmas.

I brought some knitting with me. You may or may not remember some gloves I was knitting way back last February with the intention of finishing them for her birthday in March. Needless to say that didn't happen! Well I was determined to get them done and picked up the second glove again last weekend. I had to pull out what I'd already knit as it had clearly caught on something and has a big hole in it.

I'd been working on them during the week and cursing glove knitting (fiddly fingers, yuck!) but the reality is that gloves still knit up quite fast, particularly gloves for my mum who has tiny hands!

So when we got here yesterday afternoon I had this:

By bedtime last night I had finished them! I didn't take the pictures then, I waited for some sunlight this morning.

The pattern is designed with commuting in mind and the tip of the index finger and thumb on the right hand are left off making it easier to read on the bus, use a touch screen phone (my mum doesn't have one of those!) or just do those things where only a bit of grip is needed and you really don't want to remove your full glove.

I hadn't intended them to be a Christmas gift but why not! I've wrapped them up and they're under the tree ready for my mum tomorrow.

Rav link here for yarn and pattern details.

I'm hoping I made the nice list this year and that Father Christmas visits tonight as I'm hoping very much for a new camera and not always having to use the one on my mobile phone. Fingers crossed! Still, he wont come if I don't head off to bed.

Merry Christmas to anyone who reads my blog, hope you have a wonderful time whatever you are doing with yourself.

The knitting of others

2011-12-18T16:33:00.000Z

I thought I'd share my mum's current WIP (not that I don't have plenty of my own to share!) as it is rather special. She is very excited about the prospect of becoming a grandma and there's only one thing for a keen knitter with a grandchild on the way to do, get those needles clicking!

Whilst I have the level of knitting skill to knit the same things my mum can she has one thing I'm rather lacking in, patience! Also she knits like the wind...my goodness that lady is quick! I suppose that happens when you've been knitting for over 50 years though. Anyway her patience and speed are being used to knit something I'd never get through due to my issues with startitis, a lovely baby blanket.

Apologies if the picture is a touch dull, the natural light was very thin and grey yesterday. Still the blanket is looking just wonderful and I can't wait to wrap my little one up in it...well I can wait as I want them to stay put until they're due but you know what I mean!

I can also confirm it's definitely Christmas in the Northern Monkey household. The tree has been up for a week and I still get giddy with excitement every time I switch the fairy lights on. I LOVE having the Christmas tree up...I hate taking it down but I love it when it's up. All sparkly and colourful. This year we've only got our 3ft tree up (we usually have a 7ft one in the dining room) so all my big tree decorations are on that. I don't care if it looks a bit over the top, I love it!

So, it's Sunday evening (completely dark out at 4:30pm...my least favourite thing about winter) a roast is in the oven, MrNM has football on TV (his team already won earlier today, such a relief!) and I'm ready for a long evening of snuggling up and knitting in front of the TV as all my chores were done earlier in the day. Fantastic!

The most exciting WIP ever

2011-12-08T12:58:00.001Z

A couple of weeks ago I hinted at having a very exciting work in progress at the moment and promised to tell all later. Well now I'm ready to share it.

This is possibly the most exciting (and difficult) WIP I imagine I will ever work on but I am also thinking it could be the most worthwhile one.

Baby Northernmonkey is expected to put in an appearance some time in late April or early May depending on how punctual the little monkey is.

This is partly my explanation for why I've done so little knitting to blog about lately, up until the last few weeks I've been so tired that even picking up the knitting needles has felt like a bit of a chore. I'm hoping that now I'm past some of the exhaustion the knitting productivity will increase again. I suppose it had better with a little person to knit for as well!

New technology get!

2011-12-05T10:09:00.000Z

Mr NM and I are both suckers for technology, sadly our budgets don't really match our desire for gadgets but there are times when shiny new things with buttons are a possibility.

Rather excitingly the weekend was one of those times. I got a message last week saying we were eligible to upgrade our mobile phone contracts, very exciting stuff! Now it's about 5 years since I upgraded a phone contract, I used pay as you go for a while before nearly two years ago deciding to go back to contract and joining the smartphone generation. Unfortunately those phones were very much on their last legs so the opportunity to get something new and shiny was thoroughly appreciated. Apparently these days instead of the phone company telling you what phones are available (as was the case last time I was on contract and upgraded) you can just choose anything they do, amazing.

We picked up our new phones at the weekend but with such shiny new things we saw a problem, too many opportunities to scratch shiny touchscreens! The cases available in the shop were rather expensive and with no reviews available we decided to wait until we got up, read reviews and order on-line. In the meantime I got my knitting needles and sock yarn leftovers out to knit up some little gadget socks to keep those fancy screens safe for now.

His is the larger sock, his phone is bigger than mine though I must confess I did misjudge and cast on too many stitches so it's a tad big. I offered to re-knit but my offer was declined. I used some leftover Regia in one of the Flusi The Sock Monster colourways (his choice) and then for mine some leftover Laughing Yaffle in Spring Fling. I'm hoping these will keep the phones safe and scratch free until proper cases can be purchased.

Fallberry mitts - WIP

2011-12-01T12:17:00.000Z

Looking out of my office window it’s pretty difficult to believe that this time last year we had to walk home from work as the buses had stopped running and that this was out street.

Compared to last year November has been so mild and it doesn’t seem likely to get as snowy as that any time soon. You watch it happen now I’ve said that! I am just hoping and crossing my fingers that if there is to be any snow it holds out until after Christmas when our visits to family across the Pennines are out of the way!

It may be mild but there is still a chill in the air so I thought it was a good time to cast on something to attempt to combat that. Having finished my Morven I felt rather good and positive about starting something new. I realise this is still ignoring my other WIPs, very naughty but so what, I am the boss of what I knit so there!

I need new fingerless mitts, I hate knitting fingers so any hand warming things I knit are likely to be full mittens or fingerless ones, as I still have last year’s mittens doing the full hand coverage duties and as I said, it’s not that cold yet, I definitely wanted fingerless.

I also knew I had this lovely stuff in my stash, far too soft and pretty to hide in boots! Also it doesn’t feel like it will survive being socks though I may be wrong on that one. Anyway, I didn’t want to hide it and I did want to use it so out of the stash it came.

Next was finding the right pattern, something pretty but simple with a memorable repeat and a proper thumb gusset, not just a gap to stick my thumb through. I know a couple of bloggers whose blogs I enjoy (josiekitten and snoopydog, check them out if you don’t read already) are big fans of Anne Hanson. Now I’m on a pattern purchasing ban but it just so happens that she has a pattern in the Winter 2011 Knitty for some mitts that fit my requirements pretty perfectly.

I started them on Sunday and am now at the increases for the thumb so not too shabby, I could knit them more quickly really as the pattern is simple to remember and good fun to knit but obviously there’s still that blasted issue of actually finding knitting time! I am happy so far though, I love the colours and I am thoroughly enjoying the pattern. An all round winner I’d say.

Also I must confess that whilst we're being pretty frugal this year and I'm not doing any Christmas knitting I can't help but be getting a tad excited about the upcoming celebrations. Attempts to be scrooge-y about it always fail, I just love it and am a complete big kid! As it's now December I'm totally allowed to mention the C word anyway, just need to decide when our decorations are going up.

Morven - FO

2011-11-30T11:26:00.000Z

Finally, an FO to share!

I have, at long last, finished my Morven sweater. It absolutely should not have taken me as long as it did. It's knit in the round using chunky yarn and is really very simple but life got in the way and alas, it took longer than planned. Still, it's done now.

It is SO warm. I love the colour as well, I'm not huge on yarn that has colour changes like that but I like the purple and it was very cheap which is always a bonus!

The cable on the front was fun to knit and then the plain sleeves knit up really quickly (when I got round to it) Also there's always the bonus with a handknit that it is pretty perfect fit wise. Somehow in spite of being a pretty average 5'6" I apparently have the longest arms ever and most shop bought jumpers, cardigans and other long sleeved tops are too short. Easily fixed when I knit it myself as these sleeves are just perfect for me, even if I lift my arms they stay at my wrist but aren't so long I keep catching them.

Also length wise I made the body long enough to come past my waist and part way over my bum, I also hate it when shop bought tops ride up at the waist and expose my lower back if I bend at all.

So all in all I'm very pleased. The pattern was simple and the finished result is great so I am a happy monkey. If we have the temperatures we did last winter at least I know I'll be snuggly and warm.

Pattern: Morven by Sarah Hatton (from issue 23 of The Knitter)
Yarn: Sirdar Peru, 50% wool, 40% acrylic, 10% alpaca (very cheap from Readicut, £9 for a pack of 10 balls I think, I used 7 plus a few metres of an 8th)
Needles: 5.5mm and 6.5mm
Mods: none aside from making it a little longer in the sleeves and body than stated in the pattern
Started: 13th August 2011
Finished: 27th November 2011
Rav link for anyone who wants that sort of thing.

You may also note I found my camera charger, huzzah! We're getting a new camera for Christmas though so I am incredibly excited about that.

Things that spark my curiosity

2011-11-17T15:50:00.000Z

Since getting this in my change I can't help but wonder who Amanda is...

Still no cable for my actual camera, still no great knitting progress to speak of, I'm a bad, bad blogger. I do have a very exciting project on the go actually...more on that some other time though.

Tiny quick things - FO

2011-11-01T11:04:00.000Z

Sometimes all the knits in your knitting basket, even the easy ones, just seem to take too much brain power. I know I should be finishing the sleeves of my jumper but I need to count every round for that, heaven forbid. I wanted something truly mindless but also something quick, I needed a bit of instant gratification.

Say hello to the Easy Peasy Newborn Sock Hat it's as easy peasy as the name suggests. I did a stash dive for some sock leftovers (I have plenty of those!) and found some lovely Claudia Handpainted Fingering left from my Lime Cookies (who said babies must always be in boring pastels!) Once the yarn was picked and cast on it was quick (though I didn't do it that quickly really, mostly I kept picking up and putting it down) and super simple. A perfect quick knit should you need a last minute baby gift.

I knit the pattern as written but used a 3.25mm needle instead of a 3mm as I knit tightly and was hopeful there'd be a newborn it would actually fit! It does rather need a quick bath to even up the stitches but hey ho, this picture will have to do. As you can see I'm still without my proper camera and am using my mobile phone. I must have another hunt for that charger cable.

If you want more details on the hat (though really there aren't any I don't think!) my project page on Ravelry is here.

Now I really must finish those sleeves...

A public service announcement

2011-10-28T11:08:00.000+01:00

This is a public service announcement.

I will not, I repeat WILL NOT be producing any knitted Christmas gifts this year.

I look forward to watching other people completing their Christmas knitting and other Christmas crafting whilst I knit away on enjoyable things for me (and my mum's gloves). I may finish the socks I'm knitting for Mr.NM in time for Christmas, if that's the case I'll wrap them up but they are not specifically Christmas knitting.

Did you know you only have 8 weeks left? Don't hurt me for reminding you...

Morven - WIP

2011-10-19T10:42:00.001+01:00

This morning it wasn't raining, hurrah! It wasn't grey or overcast either, double hurrah! I stepped out of the front door and took a deep breath of cold, refreshing air and was reminded of my love of autumn (which is lacking when it's raining all the time!). This is probably my favourite sort of weather. Cold but clear and bright. It's just fantastic. I can wrap up in woolies but I wont get soaked to the skin.

My camera charger is still MIA so I put the camera on my mobile phone into use, it's not a bad picture for a mobile phone and the bright morning really helped.

My morven is getting so much closer to done. I'm just working on the sleeves, I'd rather hoped to have it finished for this weekend (we're visiting family) but as I'm at choir tonight and have stuff to do tomorrow after work then we're travelling on Friday evening it's not going to happen. Still I'm over half way through the first sleeve and it does fly once I get going, stockinette in the round knit in chunky, can't complain!

A closer look at the cable, this was fun to knit but I'll confess I got a bit bored of it closer to the end of the body.

I'm a bit bored of the knit full stop really. I've enjoyed it and I know it's going to be a great, warm jumper and it fits (I tried it on quickly before starting the sleeves to check the body length) but finishing the sleeves is always a bit boring. At least I don't have to sew it up afterwards though!

I'm planning my next project for after this. I'm still working (slowly) on my lace scarf and have plain stockinette socks but I want something inbetween that in difficulty/attention needed. I shall have to nosey through my queue and see. The cold weather is making me want gloves but I hate knitting the fingers so that's a no! I'm almost tempted to buy some gloves for this winter, dreadful I know but those fiddly fingers…I just don't enjoy it.

That reminds me actually…I need to finish knitting the gloves I started for my mum ages ago…ho hum.

Photography fail

2011-10-16T16:04:00.000+01:00

We've had some beautiful sunshine, it's not warm but it's bright and sunny. Perfect photo taking weather after the recent seemingly endless grey. I want to share pictures of my knitting, I do. I ran into a small problem.

I can't find the charger for my camera anywhere and the battery is dead. Blast.

It seems the universe is conspiring against my blogging efforts.

At attempt to look sophisticated

2011-10-13T10:04:00.000+01:00

Apologies again for infrequent updates. My knitting progress is slow so I don't have much to share on that front and the dismal grey weather is rather hampering any attempts at photography.

I thought I'd share a recent non-knitting purchase.

I must confess I am not the most well presented person. It's not intentional, I have great ideas on how to dress and how I want to look but I'm a dishevelled mess half the time no matter how hard I try to look smart. I am also rather indecisive on clothes, I buy things on a whim and don't wear them and then will wear the same old things over and over again. My major issue in recent years has been my winter coat.

I bought my old winter coat in 2003 when I was in my second year of university. It's a navy duffle coat from Topshop and has been worn every winter since. I adore it but it has started to look worse for wear in more recent years, 7 winters of wear will do that to a coat. It has a large hole in the lining, it's wearing thin at the cuffs and there is a small hole in the sleeve where some charmer walked into me with a cigarette. It really needed replacing.

I've been attempting to find a suitable replacement for about 3 years but repeatedly failing, nothing ticked all my boxes. I wanted a good percentage of wool in the blend, a natural fabric as a lining so it was breathable and then other important things like a nice colour (not black, it doesn't suit me) and a nice shape. It also had to be within my budget which was where the issues arose.

Last week in that brief snapshot of beautiful, sunny weather, I found the perfect coat. I snapped it up and am very much charmed by it. It's PURPLE, a purple coat, how lovely is that? I will finally part with the "Paddington Bear coat" as the old, navy duffle came to be known.

The only problem (it's not really a problem) this coat is REALLY smart. Far more grown up and sophisticated than my old coat. It's a lovely cut and looks very sophisticated, this means me attempting to look sophisticated in it. I think I'd better get a move on with that lovely grey laceweight scarf which will look just perfect against the purple. Perhaps I'll have to actually move towards co-ordinating knitwear, the horror!

I'm hoping (if my photography is up to it) to be able to share some knitterly progress soon, remember that purple jumper? Well the body is finished...hurrah!

Estonian lace is not TV knitting

2011-09-27T10:05:00.002+01:00

I do quite a bit of knitting in front of the TV. My lovely lacy scarf is NOT TV knitting which left a little hole (well it didn't, I have other TV friendly WIPs I just didn't want to knit on them) so I had to cast on something simple.

I went with my go-to project when I want something simple and mindless, stockinette socks. For once though these are not for me, hurrah! A moment of not-selfish-knitting. Quite unlike me really as I'm a terribly selfish knitter generally. These are for the lovely Mr.NM (that man with the size 11 feet, that's A LOT of mindless sock knitting!) in yarn that has been in the stash for ages which he chose.

The yarn is Four Seasons Gründl Marathon Pompeji, a pretty standard German sock yarn which I'm sure will wash really well and be hard wearing which is necessary in his socks as he wears through standard, shop bought socks at an alarming rate. The pattern is nothing exciting but fits well and there are more details on my ravelry project page.

I'm using magic loop which has become my standard for stockinette socks, I'm terrible for getting ladders using DPNs but don't with magic loop...plus it doesn't fall off the needles so yay.

I have also returned to my purple jumper with the cable down the front in a determination to finish it so it's ready for a real turn in the weather. I think I have one or possible two more repeats of the cable to do for the body then I can knit the sleeves which should be quick and simple. We'll see.

I need to do more interesting things with my time or at least knit a lot more so I can get back to frequent blogging!

Hope everyone is well and has a lovely week.

Lovely Estonian lace

2011-09-13T10:09:00.001+01:00

I've been rather neglecting my poor blog of late, almost a month since my last post! Whilst I've felt rather guilty about it I've also failed to find anything much to blog about. My knitting has been going at a snail's pace and I haven't been doing anything interesting non-knitting wise to share either. I have not forgotten you though followers and I have not abandoned my blog or knitting, I promise.

In an attempt to feel the love for my knitting again I gave in to the urge to start something new. I had been so very well behaved sticking rigidly to my chunky woolly jumper that I'd gotten bored by the whole thing. This urge was to start something very specific. It seems so many of the blogs I read have been having lace adventures lately and oh how I wanted to cast on some lace. I resisted and resisted until I got to the point where I could resist no longer.

A quick stash dive (and some input from Mr NM) came up with this, Juno Alice Lace in Shadow Cave.

Oh my it's LOVELY. A blend of baby alpaca, silk and cashmere in an absolutely divine silvery grey. It's so unbelievably soft with a slight sheen and I adore it.

I did not particularly adore winding it. Laceweight is something that really gives me the urge to buy a ball winder and swift, it took absolutely ages to turn it into a ball. Sadly we have a long list of household "needs" and not enough money to buy them so a ball winder and swift falls way down the list. I watched some TV worked with what I had.

I picked a pattern from Knitted Lace of Estonia which is a fantastic book if you don't have it but are a fan of lace. Lots of history of Estonian lace knitting, some great tips, lovely patterns and a section on stitch patterns so you can create your own Estonian style lace shawl. I used a pattern from this book last year when I knit my MiL a scarf for Christmas (which she has never worn grumble grumble).

The pattern works in much the same way as the previous one I knit from this book. You knit one end piece first, put it on a holder, knit the scarf and then bind the two pieces together so the ends match. Actually the pattern says knit the bottom end and body of the scarf first then put that on a holder and knit the top edge but that sounds like a recipe for running out of yarn to me! It's a double strand cast on to make that edge a bit tougher and I do think the pattern is just lovely. It's called the Lilac Leaf Shawl though my intention is to wear it as a scarf as I don't really go to events where a shawl or (I think in this shape it's more a stole) is necessary!

I've finished the top edging so now onto the bottom edging and main scarf, the pattern even has nupps and whilst I left them out last time I knit a pattern from this book (as there were loads and I feared running out of yarn) I intend to do them this time as they're just in the bit of pattern where the edging meets the main pattern repeats for the length.

I can't wait to wrap this snuggly softness around my neck. Obviously at the moment it just looks like a crumpled mess but we all know that's what the magic of blocking is for.

FOs - Gretel and Citron

2011-08-19T10:20:00.001+01:00

So today I have not one but TWO finished objects for you! Quite amazing. Admittedly one of them was finished a few weeks ago and I only recently got round to photographing it (and still the pictures are rubbish…oops!) but the other was a reasonably recent FO.

Whilst I still seem to be busy busy busy I am managing a bit more knitting time and am hoping to really be able to get some more things done. It helps that I have absolutely no plans to knit any gifts for that thing with the C word that is 4 months away so I can concentrate on my favourite recipient of knitted things, me! I am such a selfish knitter it’s true but at least I know if I am knitting for myself I will love and use the item. That has not been true for some of the gifts I have knit for others in the past.

On to the knitting as I know that’s what you’re here for :-)

I finished my Gretel

This was a fun knit, being a worsted/aran weight hat it didn’t take particularly long to do and the cables were interesting enough to keep me hooked whilst being perfectly manageable without a cable needle (always a bonus!) Absolutely none of the pictures I have taken have really been able to capture the colour though. The colourway is “Frank Ochre” but in photographs it comes out either with a strong green tint or a much more mild yellow and I’ve tried every type of lighting. It’s clearly just one of those colours a camera can’t pick up. The picture above is about as close as I got but it’s yellower and not so bright as that. I love it anyway and that’s what matters, it should keep my head nice and cosy through autumn and winter.

As for the FO from a few weeks ago, it’s my Citron. Definitely a slice of orange rather than a lemon or a lime. I knit it in Kidsilk Haze after seeing one on Mooncalf’s blog (which I know was sadly lost to the washing machine so mine will NOT be going near the machine!) and thinking KSH worked so perfectly with the pattern.

I think it was Josiekitten who said that she’d heard this took people ages to knit (sorry if that was someone else, I know someone said it!) Well on my project page it looks like it took me ages to knit, in reality I knit like mad on it when we went to Edinburgh in March then didn’t pick it up again until July! The first few repeats absolutely flew by but I’d agree the latter ones seem to take ages due to the stitch count. Really though it’s mindless stockinette so it doesn’t take that long, it just doesn’t have a lace pattern to add interest which often makes it easier to deal with the big stitch counts in lace projects. If you’re a fast knitter I would say it’s a quick enough project and it’s good TV knitting. Also the end product is so worth the possible boredom!

Thanks for dropping by to look at my FOs, not sure when I’ll have any more to show but it does feel good when I am able to get an FO Friday post in. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Morven - WIP

2011-08-17T09:57:00.002+01:00

I decided it was time to start another big, sweater shaped, project. This is also partly stash-busting as this yarn has been in my stash almost since I started knitting, it was a very cheap offer from Readicut, about £10 I think for 10 balls of chunky Sirder Peru. I then really wasn't sure what to knit with it, I had a few ideas of projects but never actually started them.

A few months ago this jumper was in my copy of The Knitter

A Sarah Hatton pattern knit in the round with chunky weight. The recommended yarn is Rowan Purelife Renew but it was a pretty similar colour to the Sirdar Yarn in my stash so I thought I'd go with that. I thought that back when I got the magazine in winter, it only took me until August to actually cast on!

It's top down and I'm just ready to seperate the sleeves from the body now. So far it has been easy, the cable pattern is easy to follow and it knits up quickly being chunky yarn on 6.5mm needles (the pattern calls for 6mm but I knit tightly and no amount of relaxing or changing my knitting style has helped that so I've accepted it) I've not had a great deal of knitting time but still it seems to be growing which is excellent, just what I like in a pattern!

The first picture gives you a better look at the cable pattern but the second is more accurate for colour.

So far I'm enjoying it and am hoping it shouldn't take too long as long as I you know...work on it, apparently projects don't miraculously knit themselves, who knew?!

I'll have FOs in my next post, exciting stuff!

Getting ready for autumn

2011-08-10T10:25:00.002+01:00

Following the rather distressing felting incident with my Rose Red I knew I'd need another hat for autumn and winter.

I decided on another Ysolda pattern, Gretel using some Malabrigo Worsted from my stash. I apologise for the hastily taken camera phone picture but so far the knit is going well and very quickly. I've not had a great deal of knitting time lately but I'm already on the decreases and loving how it's coming out. It will keep my head snuggly warm right through winter...providing I don't stupidly felt it!

I'm hoping this will turn from a WIP into an FO very soon.

I felt silly at first thinking of autumn and winter in August but it was chilly and wet this morning so I know it will be upon us soon enough. I will not deny the fact I'm looking forward to wrapping myself up in handknits which is rather unappealing in the summer!

FO - Maggie

2011-08-05T19:38:00.003+01:00

I must apologise for my absence, things have been pretty busy round here leaving little time for blogging, I wish I could say I've been on some wonderfully exciting holiday but alas I haven't.

I do however have something to share. I finally finished my Maggie or as I think I shared that information previously I finally took some pictures of it! They're not the greatest pictures but here we go.

Finally a really not very good or flattering picture of me wearing it...I need to send Mr.NM on a photography course, he's worse than me! I think my silly red slippers really set off the pretty, girly cardigan!

I do love the cardigan though. As annoying as all the picots were it was a well written pattern and the fit is great. The sleeves are probably a tad shorter than my general preference but I do have monkey arms and when I wear sleeves at the length I like I ruin them by playing with and pulling on them anyway so just at wrist length was probably the way to go! The buttons are from John Lewis and were 25p each, slightly less bargainous than I'd hoped button wise as I tried raiding my mum's button tin and found nothing so had to buy some. Still I like them and I think they go well with the cardigan.

Knitting notes for anyone who doesn't use Ravelry (seriously, why not?!)

Pattern: Maggie by Kim Hargreaves from Precious

Yarn: Rowan Luxury Cotton DK (a cotton and rayon blend with a bit of silk, now discontinued, a bargain from Kemps) I think I used 11 balls or just over

Needles: 3.75mm for the edging 4mm for the body

Mods: None

What I love about it: it fits me really well, the photo may not show it but I do find it quite flattering worn with the right outfit

What I hate about it: nothing really but the picots got old really quickly! The yarn was also splitty as anything, I'm really not sold on knitting with cotton.

I've got myself as starting on 22nd April and finishing (including sewing on buttons and weaving in ends) on 14th July but I didn't really knit on it late May/early June in favour of some other knitting, I forget what. The actual knitting on this was pretty quick if only I were more loyal to my projects!

I have another FO just waiting to be photographed, I'll try not to take three weeks to do so this time!

Fluffy orange fuzz

2011-07-21T15:51:00.005+01:00

I am being incredibly well behaved and am currently working on finishing an older WIP. I felt motivated by finishing the socks that had languished in the WIP pile for some time and picked up my Citron again. This was started back in March when I went to Edinburgh with Mr.NM to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I whizzed through the first three sections whilst on the train there and back then put it aside when I got home. I've no idea why, something else will have distracted me with prettiness (it would seem I was very distracted in March, that's when the mystery socks were set aside as well!) and I didn't pick it up again.

Last week I did pick it up and I carried on. I'm glad I did. I'm now on the fifth section and in spite of the pretty massive stitch count I really feel I'm getting there.

I'm not a big wearer of orange but after seeing a few on Ravelry I knew I wanted my Citron in Kidsilk Haze and couldn't resist this bright and cheery colourway appropriately named "marmalade". I'm not sure whether I'll use KSH again...I love the colour and knit up it's fuzzy and soft and lovely but it's not much fun to knit with. It tickles my nose and sticks to me, itself, anything else lying around...not fun at all...even worse if I make a mistake and have to attempt to tink...and I make A LOT of mistakes. Pretty though, so very pretty.

I'm hoping it will be finished soon.

I'm also hoping to manage to take some good photos of my finished cardigan soon, I bought and sewed on buttons but no good pictures yet. Ho hum.

FO Friday - Cadence socks

2011-07-14T21:38:00.003+01:00

Such a busy week, I'm incredibly glad that Friday is finally here! We're visiting our in-laws so it's not exactly a quiet and relaxing weekend ahead but it's better than being at work I suppose.

It's FO Friday and I actually have a finished object to share! It's not Maggie (the lilac cardigan) which is still button-less (but visiting the in-laws will include visiting John Lewis where buttons can be procured) but a pair of lovely socks.

I started these back in March when they were the mystery sock pattern for the Sock Knitters Anonymous group on Ravelry and in spite of thoroughly enjoying them and actually keeping up with the first two clues as they were released they were then cast aside in favour of something else...I'm not even sure what now.

Such a pity for such beautiful socks. Recently I picked them back up again, apologised for my bad behaviour and knit the feet which was all that remained unknit. Now they are done and I am thoroughly pleased with them.

This is actually shown in reverse order as I put them on the sockblockers for photos (as honestly it has been very warm for modeling woolly socks! Plus I'm rubbish at photographing myself) then I washed them in soak and put them back on the blockers to even out the stitches. Still I'm sure you don't mind me shifting the timeline around in the photos!

They look like they are cabled but it's lace, a combination of yarnovers and decreases giving that illusion. I love this pattern.

I'm also very fond of the colour combination, I love green and purple together. I couldn't quite capture the colour accurately but it's closer to the colours in the shots of the full socks than in the close-up of the pattern. The yarn is Laughing Yaffle sock in "Spring Fling" and as with all Laughing Yaffle yarn it's just gorgeous with fabulous colours.

I think the combination of colours is just enough, a bit more interesting than solid or semi-solid yarn but not so varied as to obscure the charming pattern as you can see below. As I said these pictures were taken before the socks had a bath and I evened out my knitting whilst it was wet...the stitches look a little sloppy here.

All in all I'm absolutely delighted with these socks and so pleased I got them finished.

For more details on yarn, needle size, just how long they took me (oh the shame) my Ravelry project page is here

I hope everyone who is going to Knit Nation this weekend has a wonderful time, I'm not jealous, not at all, not me.

Ribbit ribbit...I mean rip it rip it

2011-07-12T19:44:00.002+01:00

I come to my blog with my head hanging in shame. A project and I were not getting along and I finally made the decision (after knitting about 10 more rounds...grr!) that it just wasn't meant to be.

It wasn't the yarn, whilst not the most exciting yarn there's nothing wrong with Regia, it's good solid stuff. The colours are vibrant, it doesn't split and it can be shoved in the washing machine so hardly something to complain about. It wasn't doing a new technique, I was coping quite happily with toe up sock knitting. It wasn't even the pattern, I've seen other peoples FOs for this and I really liked them. There was just something about it that I was not enjoying.

I think enjoying is the key part. I'm not one to rip projects out. I'll persevere through difficult patterns and with irritatingly splitty yarns (I'm looking at you Rowan Luxury Cotton), even when it seems a project will never end and I'm bored I may well put it aside but I'll come back to it and finish it off. I hate frogging, hate it. I feel like somehow I have failed as a knitter (though I know that's not true and would not think the same of other knitters who are quicker to frog than me) I do not like doing it.

This time though. I was not enjoying the knit. Whilst there was nothing in particular wrong with the pattern or the yarn every round felt like a chore. I couldn't see an end, I didn't want to, I knew even if I carried on I'd somehow resent these socks. They were not for me. I was also not convinced they'd be the right size anyway. They had to go.

Go they did...

Right back to that magic cast on

Until it was a ball of sock wool again.

It wasn't my happiest knitting experience but it's done now. I will not be casting on again for the project either BUT I will try toe-up socks again as I'm certain that wasn't the problem. It was something else, I just can't quite put my finger on why I didn't enjoy them...but I didn't and knitting is supposed to be a hobby, hobbies should be fun and not a chore. I know I did the right thing.

It was made a little easier by having just finished some projects...but more of that another time.

A useful and economical housewife

2011-07-05T10:22:00.002+01:00

In spite of it being far too hot to hang around in the kitchen I've come over all domesticated of late. Over the weekend I made pizza including making the dough from scratch, produced the pastry for home made quiche (which I actually cooked last night) and upon realising on Sunday that actually we only had 5 new potatoes (and realising this after the shops had closed) and no alternative to put with my planned Sunday dinner I made toad in the hole to stretch the meal a bit further…true Yorkshire style! Not enough meat and veg? It's OK, shove it in a Yorkshire pudding, no one will notice. I didn't take a picture of the toad in the hole (which was delicious but not very summery!) but have pictures of the pizza and the quiche.

Also there was some pastry left over from the quiche and not being one to waste good food (can't really afford to…that's sort of the point behind the cooking from scratch and the yarn diet!) I quickly made some jam tarts to use it up. I go for a more organic approach to my cooking, nothing is particularly tidy or uniform but it tastes OK. It's rustic…or something like that, I'm sure it's trendy to have it looking so slapdash. They do look a bit pale in this picture but I assure you the pastry was fully cooked.

Whilst I do own a lot of recipe books including ones specifically focussed on baking there is one that I go back to again and again, my grandma swore by it and her baking was fantastic so for basic recipes I stick with the Be-Ro book. I mostly use this one in the kitchen, it was my grandmas and it is well used and stained from being too close to the mixing bowl!

Whilst I do use that one I have something rather precious to me in my possession, a 6th edition Be-Ro book. I don't know what year it is from but the first Be-Ro book was distributed in the 1920s and they're on the 40th edition now. I am guessing it's from some time in the 1930s and it was my great-grandma's then my grandma's and now it's mine. Every so often I get it out and have a read through and a little chuckle at the old fashioned ideas within.

I love the description of how the woman who cooks well will have a happy home. I do agree being able to cook is fantastic and anyone who can should be proud of their cooking but obviously it doesn't really matter if it's the man or the woman who is doing it (though admittedly in our home I do all the cooking as I enjoy it).

The bit about mothers teaching daughers so they can become "useful and economical housewives" is just hilarious though. It's a good job I didn't rely on my mother teaching me to cook and bake! I feel very fortunate to have grown up with my grandma (I lived with my mum and grandma as a child) as she taught me. I think it was just a way to entertain me in the school holidays but when I got to university and knew how to cook whilst my housemates lived on supernoodles I was very grateful! My mum is very much of the "quick and easy" camp where cooking is concerned and she certainly doesn't bake! I'm sure my husband would argue my selfish knitting and yarn habit makes me neither useful nor economical but as I work full time I'm not a housewife either!

Some other bits showing changing times…"an ordinary coal oven", useful hints for those with fancy gas ovens, taking the grocery order to the shop (and not forgetting to ask for Be-Ro of course!) and a reminder for those using this fancy self-raising flour that you don't need to put any baking powder in it.

Finally a quick look at the recipes and the change from the black and white pictures to my full colour book, the pictures are changed, the instructions are step by step, the oven temperatures are more specific than just "a hot oven" and there are quantities in grams as well as in ounces but there are mostly the same recipes in the newer book as in the early one, they've just added more including a section on microwave cookery, gasp! What would my great-grandma think to being able to make a steamed pudding in 5 minutes?

My grandma and great-grandma were also knitters but sadly I don't have any of their old patterns or anything they made but at least I do have this little bit of history on my bookshelf.

On other weekend activities outside of the kitchen…I now have a back, two fronts, a finished sleeve and a sleeve that is on the raglan decreases for my cardigan.

There was a minor panic when I couldn't find the extra ball of yarn I knew full well I actually had somewhere but I stopped that panic in it's tracks and retrieved it from the depths of my knitting basket…no idea why it was there and I tried to ignore all the UFOs I had to push out of the way to find it.

I imagine I'll finish the second sleeve tonight then it's on to the icky bit…joining the seams, picking up stitches and knitting the collar and then seaming the whole thing. Oh joy. I can do mattress stitch but I still think my finishing is a bit rubbish, I'll just have to take it slowly as with all the effort that has gone into the knitting I don't want it ruined by sloppy finishing. Then there is the fun bit, button shopping!

I can resist everything, except temptation

2011-07-02T15:24:00.002+01:00

There may have been a little slip up in the yarn diet recently, just a little one though. I couldn't help myself.

I mean look at it...soooo beautiful. It's OK though...we have big plans, the red laceweight and I, big plans. To everyone knitting lace projects at the moment, I'm blaming you!

Speaking of little red things...this came through the door yesterday.

It's fabulous, so well written and I want to knit pretty much every pattern in it. I must, must, must finish some WIPs first though!

I was absolutely delighted to get a comment from this lovely blogger who has nominated me for a Kreativ Blog award. I was rather charmed that she described me as an "expert knitter" as that's certainly not how I see myself but it's lovely to get such compliments.

Now as part of getting this award I have to post 10 things about me...always tricky! I tried to think of things that have nothing to do with knitting so that I probably haven't mentioned in the blog before.

I drink A LOT of tea. My last blog post with my mug suggesting tea be at the top of all to do lists is very accurate. I go through at least 8 mugs of tea a day, sometimes more.
I sing in a choir and apart from a short break when at university have been singing with the same choir (though there have been slight changes to it's name and membership rules) since I was 8, the ladies at choir are like my second family.
I think the combination of chocolate and orange is the devil's worth, the thought of eating a Terry's chocolate orange (other orange flavoured chocolate is available, unfortunately) makes me feel physically ill.
As a child I fractured my skull, we only know because I had an x-ray for something unrelated and no one can work out how I did it.
I own about 40 pairs of shoes, this is a massive decrease from how many pairs I used to own.
I prefer savoury snacks to sweet ones.
I'd rather watch action films than romantic comedies or chick flicks.
I have possibly the worst co-ordination ever, I can't hit, catch or throw a ball and was always picked last for sports at school.
I don't understand the rules of tennis no matter how many times people explain them to me.
Strangely though I do understand the offside rule in football, my husband claims this makes absolutely no sense when I can't follow a game of tennis.

As you can see...I'm not the most interesting person, I need more guidance on what to write than just 10 things about me! Still I hope it was enlightening to some people anyway.

I'd like now to pass the award on to Rachel at Rewarding Memories who does lovely creative crafts as well as posting interesting things about non-crafty things in her life.

I'll be back soon with how I'm progressing knit-wise...I think slowly probably sums it up pretty well!

Remembering the important things

2011-06-23T11:35:00.000+01:00

When things are getting on top of me I write a to-do list.

I try to remember the most important things:

Sadly I do not have a mug reminding me to take and then upload knitting progress pictures.

Oops.

Try something new today

2011-06-17T10:32:00.002+01:00

UK readers must know I am not working for a particular supermarket, other supermarkets and other advertising slogans are available!

One of my ongoing goals with knitting is to be a more fearless knitter. I will admit I can be rather timid where my needles and yarn are concerned. I see a pattern and it will have a technique in it which will cause me to panic and back away, no matter how beautiful the pattern. Well NO MORE. I am working hard on learning new techniques, grabbing the bull by the horns or at least the project by the needles and getting stuck in.

I imagine some people will laugh at the latest knitting fear I have decided to overcome. I know it’s a great favourite of many knitters but it has something that has had me backing away from so many beautiful patterns. Toe up socks.

Yep. Three years of knitting (not counting childhood fumbles with thick needles and squeaky acrylic) and 18 pairs of socks (plus two pairs OTK) and not one of the socks I have knit has been toe up. My sock knitting has been exclusively of the top down, heel flap/gusset construction (I’ll get to my fear of top down patterns with short row heels later!) with no exceptions…until now.

The Knitter magazine includes a “masterclass” in every issue which is always an interesting read. The latest one was on Judy’s Magic Cast On. I decided it was about time for me to give it a go and knit toe up socks so I sought out a pattern. I decided there was absolutely no point in doing things by halves and had seen that Yarnissima had designed the mystery sock for the Solid Socks Group on Ravelry so I decided on that. I’m not joining in with their KAL as I don’t have any solid or semi-solid sock yarn in my stash (and my current yarn diet is VERY strict) but I am looking at their projects and enjoying my knitting.

I made a start and it all seems to be going just fine.

I’m using some Regia yarn I bought when I was in Dortmund last year. I managed the cast on and got going. I’m a bit further through the second clue than I have managed to photograph and I hope to make more progress at the weekend.

My Ravely project page is here.

So far so good anyway. I’ve seen the clue for the heel and did have a mini panic BUT I shall persevere, it’s only knitting, no one will die if I make a mess of it.

Here’s to learning new things and knitting without fear!

WIPW - Maggie

2011-06-15T10:15:00.003+01:00

I've not joined in with Work in Progress Wednesdays for quite a while so thought as I would rectify that to show the progress on my current garmet project. I am knitting Maggie by Kim Hargreaves and whilst it could be progressing more quickly I don't think I'm doing too badly.

Last time I posted this I had the back but now I have the back and the left front:

The front grew quickly once I was past the rather bothersome garter stitch edge. It's not difficult to knit, it's garter stitch, it's just that it feels like endless garter stitch. The edge is knit side to side then stitches are picked up to knit the front, it's the same on the back and the sleeves. It is shaped with short rows and the bottom edge is ruffled with a picot. It looks good but ohmygoodness it was BORING to knit it. I couldn't knit mindlessly as I needed to keep careful count so I knew when the short rows started. I do like the edging though, I suppose it's worth it!

It does make knitting the right front an unappealing prospect but I'm sure I'll be happy with it when it's done. I have marked up the rows where the buttons will go on the left front and made a note of these so I actually remember to knit the button holes on the right front (a bonus of this cardigan is that the button band is knit with the fronts so no fussing about picking that up afterwards)

I am pleased to be progressing with this anyway. It's my weekend project, during the week I knit socks as I may only have a short amount of knitting time. At the weekend I can sit and get stuck into bigger projects so I'm hoping that I will find enough time this weekend to get the right front done or at least most of the way done. I'm not entirely looking forward to sewing it up when I'm finished with the knitting but this yarn (Rowan Luxury Cotton DK) is very drapey so I do think it will benefit from the additional structure seams add. I do think my next garment will be seamless though.

I'm very pleased that I am working my way through my stash bit by bit and keeping to my goals for the year of actually using up my garment quantities of yarn which were entirely bought in sales with no real project in mind for them!

My project page for Maggie with yarn details is here.

More WIPW posts can be found on Tami's blog here.

The good and the bad

2011-06-12T16:26:00.002+01:00

It is raining heavily in my part of West Yorkshire at the moment but I have a bit of summer in my living room. We have a beautiful peony plant in the garden, unfortunately the flowers are so heavy that they droop to the ground and get don't last very long. I know when they're drooping it upsets Mr.NM so this year I decided to enjoy some of them in our living room instead.

I left some outside of course and the bees seem to be enjoying them.

I finished my cowl. The way the weather is I feel like I could be wearing it now! I'm really happy with the way it came out and I just love this yarn, it's such a gorgeous colour and so soft and snuggly. I'm looking forward to knitting the matching fingerless mitts.

I think I should actually knit the patterns from magazines I buy more often!

I am going to show you something now and I suggest you get a cup of tea and sit down, it's quite shocking and rather upsetting. Are you ready? Well there was a little accident in the Monkey household...

Do you see what's wrong with that picture? Let's get a bit closer shall we?

One of my 5mm knitpro nova tips...bent...bah! I am not happy. I believe it was stepped on and whilst I know it shouldn't have been on the floor (and am not entirely certain how it came to be left on the floor) but I'm still upset. Fortunately I don't need a 5mm tip at the moment but I must remember to replace it before I come to do a project using a 5mm needle only to find I don't have one any more.

Still bent needles aside I've had a good weekend and am feeling quite accomplished to have another WIP turn into an FO...I'm ignoring the fact it was a new WIP and not one that has been sitting there for ages unknit. Ho hum.

I hope everyone has had a lovely weekend and has an excellent week.

Socks and the Lake District

2011-06-07T07:09:00.004+01:00

I finished my stripey socks last week and I am thoroughly chuffed with them. I know some people obsess about stripes matching, I am not one of those people. When I finished the first sock the beginning of the next stripe repeat (which are very long in this Opal yarn) started at the toe. I refused to wind right through my ball of yarn to get to where it started again so just cast on the second sock and knit. They are a few rows out in matching but not enough that you can really tell and I love them anyway.

I do love this yarn. It's just so soft and doesn't feel at all overprocessed in spite of being mass produced self-striping. I very much envied the socks I had knit for Mr.NM in this yarn so am please to finally have got round to a pair for myself. I have another ball in my stash to do another pair for me (I can't see Mr.NM wanting a pair in the yarn as it's pink, lilac and green but you never know!) I also had quite a bit left over so may be able to get a little pair of trainer socks if I use a different yarn fo the toes.

My Ravelry project page for the socks with details of yarn is here if you're interested.

My new socks went on a little trip away at the weekend when we visited the Lake District. It was not really woolly sock weather as you will see from the pictures though they kept my feet comfortable for our long walk.

I got Mr.NM to take a photo from the car as we drove over the Hardknott Pass but I'm not sure it really reveals how difficult the driving was (the link explains if you're not familiar with the road). It was rather frightening in my little car which only has a 1.2l engine! Fortunately though we made it in one piece and I did have a great sense of achievement afterwards. I think you should get a badge really "I've survived the Hardknott Pass" or something.

The glorious (and very un-Lake District like) weather meant our planned walk for the Saturday went ahead. We took a lot of pictures so I'll share a few of the scenery.

The little white dots in this one are lots of sheep, oh my goodness did we see a lot of sheep! Not just in the fields but up in the fells where we ran into plenty of Herdwick sheep, I'm sure they were amused at how we struggled up the hills...if sheep are capable of being amused. I'd like to think they are.

A rare sight of a sheepless field!

We saw this rather handsome fellow in one of the fields, look at those horns! Fortunately we did not need to cross this field as I doubt he'd show the indifference that the ewes do.

Mr.NM fell behind as I stormed ahead with one of our friends...

Part of our walk took us through a forest of pine trees which smelled fabulous but were not so fun to have to push past when they were close together, they were rather prickly.

My new socks doing their duty! They got a touch muddy as whilst it was very sunny when we were there it had been raining heavily the week before and the ground was boggy in places. Fortunately the combination of good boots and wool socks meant my feet were dry and comfortable.

This was the view from the highest point of our walk (well there abouts) it was a bit hazy but breathtaking. I do love this part of the country.

The end of our walk involved walking back down the Hardknott Pass where I had driven the previous day. This was much harder on the feet (and the knees) than walking over the grass on the hills but after 10 miles of walking it was a relief to know that we were nearing the end of our walk.

We had a lovely time but on the way home I did not wish to drive through the passes again so took the longer (and much easier) route along the coast. We stopped briefly in Ravenglass for some toasties and a pot of tea feeling sore from the previous day's walk and rather glad to be going home as the rain was threatening. I made a mental note to visit in the future as it was quite pretty. We saw some Morris Dancers but I didn't take any pictures of them, they were wearing impressive costumes though.

I feel very fortunate to have managed a weekend in the Lakes without getting soaked (I've NEVER achieved a trip there without getting soaked to the skin at least once!) I'm just a little sad now that we don't have another camping trip planned until the end of July. Oh well, it's good to have things to look forward to.

I hope everyone has a lovely week and I'll be back soon with an update on the progress with my cowl.

Another new project you say?

2011-06-01T10:47:00.003+01:00

I started another new project...yes I know I have oodles of WIPs but I DON'T CARE. Nope...not one bit. Knitting is not the boss of me and I shall knit whatever I like whenever I like so there.

It's OK to knit new things anyway, I'm "stash-busting" and that's a good thing. The current bit of stash I've decided to bust is the bit that expanded last October when I went to Loop in London. One of my purchases there was a divinely soft skein of Old Maiden Aunt Alpaca/Silk Sport in "Last Night's Red Dress" now I'm not sure what was done in this red dress as the yarn is quite definitely purple to me! Still it's beautiful and soft and I bought it entirely on a whim then had no idea what to do with it.

Well I found a pattern in my latest copy of Simply Knitting and decided that this yarn would be just lovely for it. The pattern, Aqua Ripples, is for a simple lace cowl and matching fingerless mitts. It's written to be knit in Natural Dye Studio Queenied Love which is double knitting weight and a bit heavier than the Old Maiden Aunt but I decided to give it a go anyway and see how it went. It seems to be going well so far but when I come to the mitts I'm going to use a smaller needle as I think 4mm is really a little big for the yarn I'm using and my hands and wrists are stupidly skinny compared to the rest of me anyway so a tighter fit on the mitts would be better.

Anyway I'm happy. I'm using up yarn and the magazine purchase was actually worth it as for once I'm knitting one of the printed patterns! Amazing.

Monkey gets her mojo back

2011-05-29T21:31:00.002+01:00

I admitted recently having rather lost my knitting mojo. I was fed up with all my WIPs no matter how beautiful and the urge to knit just wasn't there, I couldn't explain it. Well it's back, that beginning of a sock seen in my post about camping has rather developed.

Last night I watched the Champions League Final. Mr.NM is a big football fan (as in Soccer for any US readers) he's not a fan of either team who played in the final but he likes to watch the bigger matches regardless of who is playing. He was rather pleased with the result, him coming from Liverpool and me from Leeds neither one of us is a fan of Manchester United! There were some cheers from us that Barcelona won.

I don't object to watching football but I knit through the match, I knit like the wind! I forgot just how quickly plain, stockinette socks grow, how much fun self striping yarn is and just how enjoyable it is to have a bit of completely mindless, no pattern to check, knitting on the go.

At kick off I had this:

At half-time I had this: (20 minutes of first half knitting time were lost to me making and eaching cheese on time!)

At full time I had this:

They seemed to just fly off the needles, brilliant! Just what I needed to get me going again. I didn't stop after the match. This morning I had this:

One finished sock! (also one very pasty leg...oh dear!) I immediately cast on the second and over the course of today am racing along and am on the gusset decreases. I may even have a new pair of woolly socks in time for our next camping trip, we're going to the Lake District at the weekend and I'm thoroughly excited.

The yarn is Opal Schafpate in the creatively named colourway 2712. It's lovely yarn, the colours are slightly heathered instead of being the harsh, bolder colours you get in some self-striping. It also feels very much like it has been a sheep instead of feeling over-processed and unnatural. It's just lovely and I'm very glad I have another ball of this yarn in a different colourway as I bought three when in Berlin a year ago. I've used it before on socks for Mr.NM and can confirm it's sturdy stuff and washes really well in the machine, he wears his a lot and they still look newly knit.

I'm excited to have my knitting mojo back and have lots of ideas whirling in my head for what projects I want to cast on...and I will finish my WIPs, honest!

A happy camper

2011-05-26T22:02:00.003+01:00

I said I'd have something exciting to post about soon, well here it is. It's exciting to me at least, last weekend we went camping. I was terribly excited to be going on our first camping trip of the year, hardly sleeping excited. We were going somewhere I'd never really been before (I'd passed through but never actually spent time there) which made it doubly exciting. We went to Derbyshire.

Much to my mother's amusement (as I was a child who had to be forced out to play and spent even the hottest months in my thickest jumpers) I love getting outdoors. There's something about being out in the fresh air that's just wonderful. Unfortunately the UK weather has been very UK-ish of late and I'll admit it was rather soggy...and windy, oh my goodness it was windy!
This is the tidiest our little tent ever looks, all set up ready for me to move our "stuff" in:

Once we were set up we were ready to explore. On the walk out of the campsite we saw this little guy up a tree, no idea what he was doing up there but he did make me laugh and reminded me of my childhood when all my friends had these little monster toys:

I don't remember what they were called but I recall you could swap them between a cuddly, cute appearance and a monster, I wanted one very much but never had one...what a cruel woman my mother was ;-)

For some reason I didn't take photos of our nosey around Ashbourne on our first evening there but I did take pictures of our day out on the Saturday when we went to Buxton. Buxton is just lovely, if you get the chance to go then do so. The Pavillion Gardens were especially beautiful.

There were many ducks and other water dwelling birds which made Mr.NM very happy as he is very fond of ducks.

I did find Buxton's yarn shop, of course! I was very restrained though, I didn't buy anything. They had a nice selection of Sirdar, Sublime and Rowan as well as some Noro and some sock yarn.

Whilst I was very restrained in the yarn there was a shop I couldn't resist a purchase in. Possible the most exciting bookshop I've ever been in. It was spread over 5 floors and sold books on every subject imaginable including some of the oldest books I've seen (and touched) outside of museums and libraries. There was little order to the books which made it all the more exciting, hunting for hidden treasures in the shelves.

There was even an organ to have a play of the sheet music before purchasing

Possibly the best bit was the little kitchen to make your own cup of tea or coffee to drink as you browsed

I did buy a book, a little book of narrative poems from the 1930s, for some reason (I'm a dimwit) I didn't take a photograph but it's very special and I'm happy with my little purchase.

After a lovely day in Buxton (and some delicious fish and chips) we had to head back to the campsite and settle down for a relaxing evening. We set up our chairs, got out some beer, lit the BBQ and relaxed for the evening.

I'm not going to lie, it was cold but it was OK. I had two very important things to keep me warm. The glowing remnants of the BBQ

And the most important keeper-warmer...WOOL!

Still here

2011-05-18T11:49:00.002+01:00

I was going to go with "I'm doing science and I'm still alive" but:

a. I've used that post title before
b. It might make people think I'm playing Portal 2 which I'm not because Mr.NM hasn't bought it for himself yet and he's the gamer, I'm just a keen observer

I am still here though, still alive, still reading everyone elses' blogs. Unfortunately fairies appear to have visited in the night and replaced my brain with cotton wool. Knittnig beyond the purple thing I showed last time has ground to a halt and I've not even been doing other interesting things or taking photographs to share with you. I apologise for being a rubbish blogger.

I promise to get back on track very soon. I cast on a new project last night (no I haven't finished any of my other WIPs, shush!) and I have some exciting things coming up that I will be able to share with you and that I hope will feel blog-worthy as nothing else I've been doing of late hast been.

I will be back, I promise.

Also yes it was my birthday last time I posted and I didn't get a single knitting thing, not one, not even a book about knitting or anything! I didn't even buy any knitting stuff with the money I got and have been successfully sticking to the yarn diet since March. Wow.

Welcoming the merry month of May

2011-05-03T06:02:00.005+01:00

As a UK person working in a standard office job I must say I'm rather getting on board with this 3/4 day weeks business and will be most disappointed next week when I'm in all 5 days! Unfortunately it's also throwing me completely off balance and I'm rather losing track of what day it actually is. I knew what day it was today though as I woke up to a little pile of cards waiting to be opened.

I had a lovely weekend. We did not watch the Royal Wedding, I'm not particularly interested in the Royals or in weddings I'm not invited to/where I don't know the people getting married so I was never going to get into the wedding fever that seemed to hit so many people. I'm not complaining about the wedding though, I would never complain about an extra bank holiday!

Instead I caught up with a lot of housework and did some serious spring cleaning then went to a 60th birthday party on Sunday. It was a good weekend really and the good weather meant I could dry all my washing outdoors, I do love that line dried smell.

Yesterday was a day of baking, I spent almost all day in the kitchen making buns to bring to work today.

Chocolatey buns

The chocolatey buns were topped with chocolate ganache made from dark chocolate (85% cocoa solids...yummy) and double cream, not good for the waistline but very tasty!

Vanilla buns with buttercream (which is supposed to be lilac but looks a bit grey in the photos) and hundreds and thousands.

And "Passion cake" buns which are banana, carrot, sultana and coconut, they're supposed to have nuts in but one of my colleagues is allergic so I left the nuts out.

These buns are topped with cream cheese frosting...mmmmm

Naughty but totally worth it! Also banana, carrot and sultanas...got to be one of your five a day right?!

Worry bot though, I managed to fit in some knitting time and am making good progress on my new project, a lovely cotton and silk blend for spring/summer knitting.

Summer is definitely on the way, I was awoken this morning by the sun blazing through our window, I panicked that the alarm hadn't gone off or I'd slept through it only to look and find it was actually 5am. I think we need darker curtains!

You're not the boss of me now

2011-04-26T18:25:00.002+01:00

Tsk tsk no blog in two weeks? Naughty...

I got a bit fed up with my knitting and my silly rules about what I must finish before starting anything new. Well those rules just made me not want to knit any of my WIPs. The recent sunny weather made knitting woolly socks, gloves and a scarf unappealing. Also I got this little delivery:

Pretty boxy project bags from Zigzag Stitches on Etsy with a charming owl print, I love them

It would have been rude not to start a new project to put in one of them right? I will not let my WIPs and my notebook on Ravelry be the boss of me and shall knit what I please when I please. Excuse blur though it adds to the "what am I knitting" mystery I suppose!

Also the sunny weather rather gave me an itch for one of my other favourite activities...camping! In all the sun of last week I got our kit out and gave it a good airing ready for our first camping trip of the year in May, I can't wait

Annoyingly the weather has resumed it's usual grey Britishness, how dare it?! I should have known all that sun was too good to be true...I just hope that wasn't our entire summer, I have pretty cotton dresses to wear, BBQs to eat and fields to sleep in.

Monkey's monkeys - FO

2011-04-11T20:18:00.002+01:00

Huzzah and joy and excitement abounds, I have a FO to show you. I get terribly excited when I can finally show something finished, particularly when I've had so many WIPs on the go of late.

It was a gloriously sunny weekend in my corner of West Yorkshire and I took my new socks out into the garden for a little photo shoot.

Look at those yummy shades of minty green, blue and turquoise with hints of mossy green and parts that are almost black. I love this yarn. Mr.NM calls them my mint choc chip socks and the colour really is reminiscent of that rather delicious ice-cream flavour, it looks more blue in these pictures but in places it's more minty green.

This was all the yarn I had left when I finished, just a little squishy ball. It made me quite glad I'd made a mistake on the cuff of the sock, I mistake I managed not to notice until I'd knit past the heel flap and started the decreases for the foot. I missed two rows of the chart but only on the leg. I then made the second sock with the same mistake so they do match in their wrongness. I'm fine with it, they're snuggly and squishy and I think had I not made that error I would have run out of yarn.

Anyway, the FO shot, here we go...

I love them and I love the pattern. I'll be knitting more Monkeys, they're addictive, the pattern works up so fast and they look great.

I'm working away on my other WIPs now in the hope of having another FO to show you soon.

New Knitty

2011-04-07T12:17:00.003+01:00

It’s not often that I look at an edition of Knitty and go “ooh I ilke that, and that, and that, and that, oh and that too” it’s even less often that I do that with any patterns which are supposedly spring/summer patterns. I’m not really great with spring/summer. I like heavy fabrics and snuggly clothes too much but well…I just looked at the Spring/Summer 2011 Knitty and got a little giddy. There was so much I liked about it, so many patterns that caught my eye. To be honest I don’t need any more patterns to catch my eye, I have quite enough in my queue but still I couldn’t resist the charms of these.

Rivercat socks it's not that often that something grey appeals to me but oh my I love these socks, the stitch pattern looks like so much fun, just enough to be interesting without me going cross-eyed staring at the socks.

Also on the sock front I like Zingiber they're mens socks (though obviously could be done smaller for me) and I'm sure they're a pattern Mr.NM would be willing to wear. I do love twisted stitches on a background of little purl stitches. I'm less keen on the idea of ptbl for the heel flap so perhaps would give that a miss, I can do it but I don't necessarily want to!

I was then drawn in by a lovely shawl and a shawlette Omelete and Forest Ridge I have become rather fond of lace knitting and have some lovely laceweight in my stash that could be turned into one of these. Sadly Omelete is really scratching my "must buy yarn" itch as the thought of yellow lace, lovely. I pretty much never wear yellow but there's something about yellow lace knitting that always draws me in.

I really love the lace at the shoulders and the hemline of Rondeur I'm not sure about knitted t-shirts/short sleeved sweaters so would be thinking about making it long sleeved instead but the pattern is just lovely and that curved hem, I'm liking that very, very much.

Also in the garments I really like Corinne the story about the desiging of it drew me in, I also got married on 21st March and nearly froze to death in a sleeveless gown without a shawl (though I had planned ahead and bought one, I just managed to forget it on the day!) It was the construction of this that got me. It's knit side to side in garter stitch with just a little seaming at the end, I do like seeing knit stitches turned sideways or going in less usual directions and for this I think it really works. I'm not sure I'd go for pale pink but I'm with it as a design, it looks like a very wearable, go with anything, sort of cardigan.

I do also like Amiga though I'd be looking to substitute for a different 4ply/fingering weight yarn as that used in the pattern doesn't appear to be available in the UK and I'm not entirely keen on knitting in 100% cotton yarn anyway. I do like the shape though and again a seamless construction though you do have to pick up stitches for the button band and collar, not a problem though.

So yes, I was quite overwhelmed by just how much of the new Knitty I liked as there hasn't been much that has appealed in the last few. Again doubly shocked that I'm liking spring/summer designs when I consider myself such an autumn/winter person with my fashion preferences. Perhaps I'm changing. Sorry for a pictureless post BUT I will have pictures soon as I finally have an FO to share, an FO of a socky nature (and a past Knitty design actually)

My Knitting Time - 2KCBWDAY7

2011-04-04T10:28:00.001+01:00

I'm a bit late with my day 7 post and a bit disappointed that this was the case. I had hoped to keep up with the week and post to the schedule. Unfortuantely the traffic on the A55 had other ideas. We spent the weekend with Mr NM's mum and his Nana in Llangefni, Anglesey and whilst our journey there was uneventful our journey back took 4 hours with a lot of that spent sitting going nowhere. As a result by the time I got home I was so tired I couldn't be bothered to even switch my laptop on, never mind construct a blog post. I didn't even knit!

Speaking of knitting, my knitting time and any rituals or routines relating to it I did have a good think about this. I read through the suggestions of what I might do but it didn't really fit. I don't listen to specific music or do anything particular in preparation for my knitting time, I just knit. I will knit just about anywhere, on the bus, on trains, in the doctor or dentists waiting room, at home, at my mum's home, at my in-laws home. I'm not fussy. I don't need silence to knit, there are some tricky patterns which much be followed carefully in which case I don't do anything at the same time as knitting but background noise doesn’t disturb me. Sadly I do pretty much all of the driving so knitting in the car is not an option, perhaps in future should Mr NM become a more confident driver.

Most of my knitting takes place whilst watching TV. Mr NM and I watch A LOT of TV and A LOT of films. There are rules though so I suppose there is some routine. I'm "allowed" to knit when watching lighthearted comedies and certain dramas but knitting during serious TV that requires undivided attention is NOT ALLOWED. If I dare to knit when watching a TV series such as Boardwalk Empire or a big film such as Inception I get the glare of death from Mr NM. I suppose I could still knit but I am happy with the rules and I couldn't possibly knit when watching True Blood because I might miss a moment of Alexander Skarsgård's screen time and that just wouldn't do.

Thank you Eskimimi for organising this again, I only read last year but this year it has been a lot of fun to take part and also to read some blogs I hadn't read before and to think differently about my own blogging. It has been great fun.

Something to aspire to- 2KCBWDAY6

2011-04-02T09:15:00.002+01:00

I had a think about all the beautiful patterns I've seen, all the beautiful projects I would like to knit. I do want to knit them but I wouldn't say I aspire to them, I just have them in my queue and do intend at some point to give them a go.

For Christmas 2009 my mum bought me this book (excuse the rubbish photo, it's grey and dreary in Leeds this morning and I couldn't get good light anywhere)

I had been knitting for a year and hadn't tried anything particularly adventurous. I had a flick through but that was it as it all seemed way beyond me.

I'm feeling more confident as a knitter now and what I'd like to have a go at more than anything else is writing up my own pattern. I don't want to sell patterns or anything I just want to design some things for myself and I am determined to give it a go. That's what I aspire to.

Also a clarification for yesterday's post, I don't have more pairs of shoes than balls of yarn, I just have more storage boxes containing shoes than storage boxes containing yarn. This is probably still a problem.

And now for something completely different - 2KCBWDAY5

2011-04-01T19:27:00.003+01:00

A little story not related to knitting...

A couple of months ago I saw some boots, I loved them. I saw the price tag and my heart sank, they were beyond me.

Yesterday I went shopping, saw a sale sign in the same shop and couldn't help but take a peek. There were the shoes, the shoes of awesome, reduced by £25! I asked for my size. It was the last pair and one had been on display for some time, it was more worn and very slightly faded. I made puppy dog eyes at the sales lady and got an extra 10% off the price. Bargain.

Now for a confession. This knitter has more boxes of shoes than boxes of yarn, seriously.

Where are they now - 2KCBWDAY4

2011-03-31T10:18:00.002+01:00

This was a tricky topic for me to respond to. I am by my own admission a selfish knitter and I’d say 90% of my projects are knit for me. I’ve knit a few baby things for friends and family, socks for my husband and socks for my mum but I know what has become of them, my husband and my mum both wear their knit gifts frequently and the babies, well they will have grown out of what I knit them now so I suppose I don’t know where their knits have gone on to but I don’t really think about it. I have knit two scarves for my mother in law including a very time consuming lace scarf, I’ve never seen her wear that one and I saw her wear the other once. I know they’re snuggled up in the top of her wardrobe. I didn't really want to write about something I knit for myself so I had a little think.

The one thing I did knit and have no idea where it is my Innocent Smoothie hats. I hope someone did buy the smoothies with my hats on them and that they made someone smile because knitting them and lining up all the teeny tiny hats certainly made me smile, as did going through all my sock leftovers and remembering knitting the socks whist I made the hats. I really need to start making some more for this year’s campaign.

Tidy mind, tidy stitches - 2KCBWDAY3

2011-03-30T12:07:00.002+01:00

Tidy is not a word that anyone has ever really applied to me. I am pretty scatty to be honest. I lose things, I spill things, I trip over things and am generally pretty shambolic. If I button up my shirt with all the buttons in the right holes first time I’m having a good day.

The silly thing is I love organising things, in theory. I love to come up with great systems of organisation where everything is just so. I drool over storage boxes and files and other organisational tools. I even go along with my big plans of organisation, I write down what I spend, I keep my receipts, everything is in the right place…for about a week, tops.

My stash organisation reflects this. There is a clear desire to be organised there but there’s a big pile of scatty thrown right in with it.

My stash is split into two sections. Jumper quantities, baby gift knitting yarn and odd balls of DK and aran weights live on top of the wardrobe in our spare bedroom. I got these two fabric storage boxes from Ikea, they fold flat which is pretty cool if either is ever empty but neither one has been since I bought them and filled them with yarn.

Check out the lovely artex on the bedroom ceiling! Inside the boxes are far less pretty than the outside. In some (probably futile) attempt to deter moths I wrap my yarn in plastic bags. It doesn’t look pretty but so far the yarn is both moth free and dust free, the tops of the boxes are open so the yarn does need some protection. The pink bag you can see a bit of in the picture contains lots of straight knitting needles that I hardly use anymore but heaven forbid I’d do something rash like give them away, I might need them.

My other knitting stash box contains sock yarn and laceweight as well as some rogue balls of other yarns which shouldn’t be in there! This box lives in the top of the wardrobe in my bedroom. Once again we have a delightful textured ceiling there! Also for anyone with a fondness for old school gaming and computing that’s an Amiga under the box, sadly it’s a bit broken but Mr.NM clings to the hope he can fix it some day.

I know I have to show you a little view inside as well

Mmmm squishy! Again yarns are put into little plastic bags in the hope of protecting them, at least I feel like I’m doing something.

I think you can see there is an attempt at organisation, it’s probably as good as I’ll ever get! One day when we buy our own house I am hoping to find one with space for an Expedit bookcase/shelf unit from Ikea so I can get that and display my stash, Mr NM has OKed this idea as he is far more organised and tidy than I am!

As well as “organising” my stash I need somewhere to keep my WIPs. Whilst they naughtily sneak themselves onto Mr NM’s blu-ray shelf (which is next to where I sit on the sofa) or onto the coffee table or just the floor next to my sofa spot this is where they’re supposed to live. I have a mini linen basket tucked down the side of the sofa which contains my WIPs (currently too many), my interchangeable needle case, a Namaste buddy case for sewing needles and other little bits and pieces and my button tin. There are also other scraps, the odd book and bits of tat in there, I'm terrible. I am still a little embarrassed by the current number of WIPs, I need to turn those into FOs.

So there you go, my attempt at organisation. Fortunately looking around I see plenty of others are just as scatty as me and have the problem of WIPs and balls of yarn turning up all around the house, I swear it breeds and moves by itself!

Skill +1UP KCBWDAY2

2011-03-29T10:23:00.005+01:00

Skills I've not learned in the past year - how to avoid accidentally deleting my blog post. Oops!

Start again…

I had a good think about this, what new skills have I learned in the last year of knitting. I was amused to note that actually I'm knitting exactly the same sock pattern now as I was at this time last year, Monkey by Cookie A.

That aside I feel I have developed a lot as a knitter over the last twelve months and have taken on some projects I would have shied away from this time last year including two large lace projects, my green shawl and my mother in law's pink scarf. I knew how to knit lace this time last year though, I just didn't do it much so hardly a +1up.

A skill that is new since last year is cabling without a cable needle, I'm pretty certain this time last year I'd have looked at you like you were crazy had you even suggested this to me. I wasn't very good at cables, I hadn't knit many of them and often found little ladders at the sides of them. I liked the look but actually knitting them was another matter entirely and I will admit I hated faffing with the cable needle but really didn't believe there could be another way for me. I then joined a KAL on ravelry for a mystery sock pattern by Cookie A. In the pattern notes she recommended cabling without a cable needle, ha I thought, not for me.

I got my cable needle out and started the project. After one round (yes the cables or rather twisted stitches) started on the FIRST ROUND of this pattern, a round which involved dropping my cable needle, muttering, cursing, pulling out and starting again, I decided to give this cabling without a needle a go. I'm so glad I did.

These were the socks from that first cable needle free experience and I still love them:

I don't think I'd have kept going past the first few rounds had I continued with my cable needle as there were twists on pretty much every round of the pattern. I've since knit more socks with tiny, twisty cables and once again didn't use a cable needle and once again was so glad I made the effort to learn this simple technique as it really is so much quicker.

I'm not saying I'm putting away my cable needles forever, for wider cables over quite a few stitches I will still use one but it has opened up a whole new stack of sock patterns for me to play with and I do love the look of tiny little twisty stitches.

As for how I want to develop as a knitter, my next +1up well there is a technique that still frightens me even though I know I shouldn't be frightened of knitting, the worst that can happen is I'll have to rip it out. Still I get into a panic when I think of it.

Colourwork.

I'm determined though, I even bought wool in Edinburgh with stranded colourwork in mind, good, old fashioned, sticky wool which I was assured is excellent for colourwork (and I saw a lovely example in the shop) so I am going to give it a go this year and add that to my list of knitting techniques.

A tale of two yarns - 2KCBWDAY1

2011-03-28T10:06:00.006+01:00

I read a lot of the posts last year but didn't join in with blog week. This year I felt a bit more confident that I would be able to write daily on the topics given so decided to give it a go.

So...two yarns...how to choose? In preparing for this week I thought a lot about my yarn stash, I panicked a little about it's expansion since summer 2008 when I re-learned how to knit and I thought about the yarns I have used in that time. When I started re-learning I didn’t know all that much about yarn, my mother has always knit as did my grandmother but they never went for the luxury yarns, they couldn’t afford to.

I also didn’t call it yarn, in the UK it’s pretty standard for (uninitiated) people to refer to it all as wool whether or not it’s from a sheep. The LYS nearest to where I grew up is called “The Wool Shop” but very little of what they sell is 100% wool, it’s mostly blends and also rather a lot of 100% acrylic. I must also admit I can’t say yarn without snickering a bit and doing a pirate impression. When looking for yarns to learn with I bought a lot of cheaper, mostly acrylic, yarn and balked at the idea that anyone would spend £5 or more on just one ball of yarn.

Oh how I’ve changed! I still don’t tend to spend more than £5 on a ball of yarn unless we’re taking handdyed sock yarn or lace weight (where you’re getting a fair bit of yarn for your money anyway) but I completely understand why people might spend that and the value of good quality yarn in natural fibres.

That said, I am not a yarn snob. I will knit with acrylic quite happily and believe it has a place in the knitting world, particularly if you don’t want to have to hand wash knits and especially when making baby garments, hand wash only baby yarns I don’t understand! Not being a yarn snob and finding a place for most yarns made choosing a yarn I hadn’t really got on with quite difficult. I didn’t want to go for a novelty yarn, I’ve not really used any (though have some in my stash which was rather an error of judgement when I got over excited by an offer on Readicut) so I had a good think of what has not worked so well for me.

I settled pretty quickly on the yarn used for The Cardigan of Doom. I can’t say it was the wrong yarn for the project, the pattern was designed for this yarn. It was just that the yarn and I just did not get on.

Patons Pompero

Now this yarn looks lovely knit up, it has subtle variations in the colour and whist it’s fluffy there is some stitch definition. It’s soft and warm and washed well (by hand of course! It’s supposedly machine washable at 30 but I’m terrified of machine washing handknits even when the yarn is supposed to be machine washable, see yesterday’s blog post for why!) so really there seems to be nothing wrong with it. I may have had some issues with running out of yarn and miss-crossed cables but that wasn’t the fault of the yarn so what’s the problem?

The problem came when I did (inevitably where my knitting is concerned!) make mistakes. I said the yarn is fluffy, well it is, it’s very fluffy, fuzzy even. Take a closer look:

This yarn is like velcro, seriously. It sticks to itself and is an absolute nightmare to rip out. As well as being velcro-like when attempting to frog note how loosely spun it is, it’s so splitty. It’s a shame really, as I said it’s lovely knit up and once the cardigan was finished I was really pleased with the result but there’s no way I’d knit a garment with it again. If I do come up with something to knit from the 95% of a ball I have left I’ll be doing so with blunt needles in an attempt to get round the splitty-ness.

Now for a beautiful yarn of scrummy gorgeousness. I have a lot of these and it was very difficult to choose. I have become a lover of hand dyed sock yarns in all colours and varieties, I am pretty powerless to resist. This made finding a yarn I adore pretty tricky, how can I possibly choose just one? A good rummage through my stash brought up a yarn that has been in residence for nearly two years, it was a birthday gift in 2009, I still haven’t knit it up because it’s just so beautiful, so soft, so perfect and I’m not sure I can do it justice.

Cariad Yarns Flimstone Bay

I’m afraid my picture really doesn’t do justice to just how lovely this yarn is. The colourway of this hank of smooshy gorgeousness is “lush” and it really suits as it is such a rich, lush shade of green with subtle variations into blue-ish greens. I adore the colour, I’ve stated many times my love of green and this is my favourite green yarn. It’s a blend of 80% lambswool, 10% angora and 10% cashmere and is so soft I sit and stroke it and wonder if instead of knitting it I can just keep it as some sort of pet.

It is however not without flaws. According to the band it’s only 280 yards of fingering weight and I’m not entirely sure what to do with that (if I did dare knit it) it’s not enough for a shawl, it’s not enough for socks (not that I’d dare knit them wish such a soft, luxury yarn anyway) leaving me thinking some sort of hat or cowl or perhaps mittens? I just don’t know what to make with it, even if I did dare knit with it.

It also appears to be discontinued, there isn’t much available on-line and their website has disappeared so I assume they have too. I don’t dare fall in love any more by knitting because this is it, I wont get more of this yarn. It also looks absolutely certain to split like mad. Still I love it so and one day I shall come up with something beautiful to knit it into and this will be a happy day indeed.

I must ask myself though what is so great about a yarn I don’t dare knit with? Isn’t that the point of yarn? I think I need to make a goal of finding a project for this yarn and actually knitting it up and giving it the love it deserves instead of tucking it away in my stash where it’s beauty really isn’t appreciated.

Wow, it looks like giving me a subject to write about is dangerous, I babble on even more than I do when I’m just blogging generally about knitting with no direction!

See you tomorrow.

If there's a knitting deity s\he hates me

2011-03-27T16:15:00.002+01:00

The title says it all. I've had a bad weekend knitting wise.

It all started with my decision to clean my Rose Red my lovely, green, Felted Tweed hat. My first lace project, my first project with any degree of difficulty really. Oh how I loved that hat and how it was complimented by so many people. I was very proud of it. Note the past tense there. My decision to clean it involved putting it in the washing machine with some other delicates as it is allegedly machine washable. Well...not in my washing machine it isn't.

This is my Rose Red now.

With my hand for scale.

Bah. I should have known from the noise our washing machine makes on it's spin cycle, both for delicates and everything else, that it was throwing the contents around. At least I know if I want to do a project involving felting my washing machine is great at it.

On the plus side I can now knit a hat with my new Scottish yarn without worrying that I have too many hats already...if such a thing ever is a problem.

On to my second kick in the teeth by the knitting deity...

My February Lady Sweater.

You may recall I thought I was running out of yarn. I couldn't understand exactly how I was running out as I knew I'd bought more than the recommended yardage for my size but sure enough I was definitely running out. I knit the sleeves shorter than I'd planned and was pretty sure I'd make it.

I made it to here, about half way through the cast off on the second sleeve.

That's where I ran out of yarn. Curses. I threw a bit of a hissy fit and being pretty far from a perfectionist made a decision I know would make many knitters toes curl. I unpicked what I'd cast off already and tinked half a round before that then cast off again. One sleeve is half a round shorter than the other but really, you can't tell. I've never been a perfectionist, there are other little mistakes in the cardigan but that's OK. I claim I'm following the same view of the rug weavers who include an intentional mistakes as only God is perfect. That's it.

I was pleased though, my FLS is finally finished. Done.

In spite of the little issue with the sleeve I'm really happy with it. I love the colour, the yarn is great and it fits really well. I also love the way the buttons work with the yarn. It still needs a little wash to neaten up the stitches (by hand of course!) but I'm wearing it at the moment as I'm so happy it's done I don't want to have to wait for it to dry! Please excuse the rubbish modelling with only semi-dry hair, one day I'll buy a tripod and get better pictures of me wearing my mitts.

Now it looks like all turned out well doesn't it? I suppose it did. I have a lovely new cardigan and the little adjustments I had to make are hardly noticeable. I should be really happy and for the most part I am, honestly, I am.

The thing that makes me not happy, the thing that made me have a new hissy fit, well...

I was sorting out some of my stash and tidying things away and under my balls of Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply I found this:

I knew I had enough yarn for the pattern, I knew I'd bought enough. There may have been swear words when I found that last ball.

What have I done to deserve this?

I think I may have an answer to that one. I think I am being punished for this:

That's my pile of WIPs. Note the cuff of the second glove in the pair I'm making for my mum's birthday, her birthday which came and went earlier this month. Oh dear. Also the fish scarf started back in January and four socks, a first of a pair, a second of a pair and a pair knit in tandem.

That's a lot of WIPs, I don't think I've ever had so many on the go at once. I have decided I'm going to get them finished and I will NOT be starting any new projects until I've at least finished the glove, the second Monkey sock and the March mystery socks. I confess I swatched for another cardigan yesterday but I didn't cast on, I'm not going to cast on. No new projects. If I even hint at starting one shout me down.

At least the baking deity likes me.

These went into the oven:

These came out:

I can comfort myself in my annoyance with peanut butter and banana muffins, yum yum yum!

I'm looking forward to next week when I shall be blogging daily, oh my. I'm a little nervous and unsure about some of the days but I think I'm ready and I'm excited.

I hope everyone has a great week.

A little trip away in celebration

2011-03-25T10:32:00.003Z

Monday marked two years since Mr NM and I did this:

In celebration we went here:

That's Edinburgh if you weren't sure. It was wonderful, we had glorious sunny weather (after all my colleagues had warned me last week that we'd be freezing and it was snowing up there!) and I even regretted wearing my big, thick, winter coat and wished I'd taken a lighter weight one. Spring was truly in the air just as it was two years ago when we managed a cold but bright with sunshine day.

I don't have a lot of pictures to show, I'm not sure why I didn't take lots considering the beautiful weather and what a gorgeous place Edinburgh is but there you go. I did take this rather odd shot just because I was so baffled, this is the first hotel room I've been in where there was a telephone in the bathroom, I couldn't think why I'd need to make a call from there!

One of the most exciting things about the trip was that we travelled by train. Whilst Mr.NM has a driving licence he's not done a lot of driving and isn't very confident so mostly if we're going anywhere I drive, the opportunity to just sit back and relax on the train was wonderful. It was made extra wonderful by the gorgeous view. The train up the east coast to Edinburgh is one well worth taking. I had rather wished we'd been able to get off the train at Berwick-upon-Tweed it was so gorgeous.

There was knitting on the train, I may have started a new project in the fuzzy, orange ball of Kidsilk Haze fluff purchased last October when I was in London.

Mmm orange fluff. The colourway is Marmalade and it's a deeper, redder orange than this picture shows.

I had said all along that my trip to Edinburgh was one of the occasions where my yarn diet could be broken. I was still very reserved when I made my little visit to K1 Yarns Knitting Boutique a charming little shop with a lovely and very enthusiastic member of staff. Mr NM initially joined me in the shop but ran away when the lady working there started enthusiastically thrusting angora at us and telling us all about her future knitting plans. Sadly pure angora was not in my knitting budget no matter how soft and fuzzy, I also rather surprised her by telling her they do actually sell Orkney Angora at my LYS in Leeds! The rule was I could only buy something there I can't buy at home.

What I did go for was two 50g balls of DK weight 100% Scottish Wool in Turquoise and Silver as I am determined to have a go at colourwork and make some sort of hat from this.

I hope everyone else has had a lovely week, I am enjoying my last few days at home before my return to the daily grind. I will mostly be attempting to prepare for some heavy duty blogging next week as part of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2011.

Not a lot to show

2011-03-18T12:03:00.001Z

I’ve been meaning to upload knitting photos from last weekend all week and have kept forgetting to do it, I finally managed to get my act together today and put the pictures onto my computer and then onto flickr. Progress at last! Unfortunately I realised I only actually had three pictures (well more than three but that included multiple pictures of the same thing) and nothing much to write about. Oops. Things are a bit hectic at the moment and I’ve felt like I’ve been rushing along with my feet not even touching the ground. Since Monday I have knit one round of a sock, that’s it, just one round of sock.

I did finish the second clue of my mystery sock for both socks, I am still in love with this yarn, the colours are just so pretty.

As my current case of sock-startitis is still very much present I wound some yarn to knit another pair of socks, this time Hedera by Cookie A. the yarn is Colinette Jitterbug in October Afternoon

Isn’t that pretty? Such lovely colours and so squishy. I like the yarn a lot, the colours a lot, the way it knits up a lot, the pattern a lot. I should be super happy with this, I should be but well… it does this:

I’m not sure how clear that is but my fingers are a delightful shade of orangey red there where the dye rubs off onto them. Mr.NM is concerned about what it might do to my feet and keeps saying “you’d better not be putting that yarn on the sofa” if it stains like that. Sigh. I love it so much but I am not happy about the colour running and I’ve heard it then fades like mad when you wash it, how disappointing.

That is all I have to show you. I have finished the first sleeve of my February Lady Sweater but I didn’t take a picture, I am panicking about the possibility I will not have enough yarn to finish the second sleeve. Again. This is becoming an ongoing theme. I’m quite annoyed as I checked and calculated and making it to measurements I had the recommended yardage…well apparently not. I’ll just have to see what happens and hope that I was calculating correctly when I stopped with the first sleeve so I have enough yarn. I have one full ball and a bit of a ball of yarn to work with. Fingers and toes crossed!

I’m off work next week so am hoping for good knitterly progress and lots of pictures to share, I hope anyway. I also need to start planning for the Knitting and Crochet Blog week because if I attempt to do each day spontaneously I'm doomed to fail as it will get mixed up with the hundred and one other things I attempt to do week to week.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Progress and buttony goodness

2011-03-07T13:42:00.002Z

I'm in a very good mood today as Mr NM and I are both having a day off work, we're not doing anything in particular, just enjoying some relaxing time at home.

I finished the first clue of the mystery socks and am really liking how they're working up and how the pattern looks in this lovely spring fling yarn. I'm waiting for the second clue to be published, it should be some time today and if the first clue is anything to go by this pattern is going to be fabulous.

For in between clues I've cast on my second Monkey sock in Jitterbug, I rather like the way it pools on the cuff, I love the colours of this yarn. Colinette do such delicious, rich colourways and the yarn is so squishy. It's just a pity that the yardage is on the short side for Jitterbug really as it limits pattern choice for socks.

Another project has made a comeback, I've not blogged about it for just over a month and I've not been particularly dedicated with knitting it, just picking it up now and then for a repeat of the pattern. Still it has been moving along slowly but surely and I've just about finished the body (as of now I have about 4 rows of garter stitch and the cast off to do, that will be done today) then it's on to the sleeves. I had thought I'd make the sleeves longer on this than in the pattern but as I only have two and a bit balls of yarn left they're going to be 3/4 length as in the pattern. I'm happy with that though, I love the cardigan already and I can see myself wearing a lot.

I picked up buttons for my cardigan at the weekend from Duttons for Buttons in Harrogate. I took my mum there for her birthday (Harrogate, not specifically the button shop!) I did take my camera with me but it was such a grey and drizzly day I didn't end up taking any pictures to share. I love these buttons though, I knew I wanted wooden buttons and I think they work really well with the yarn which has little brown flecks that don't really show up in the photos. I love the design of the buttons, I think they're quite unusual and they're so smooth and feel great quality.

I somehow managed to be restrained and only make that purchase, I wanted to buy so many buttons as they have such an amazing selection. Their shops are well worth a visit if you're in Harrogate, York or Ilkley.
I hope everyone has a great week and I hope I'll have a finished cardigan to show you soon.

A March mystery - WIP Wednesday

2011-03-02T10:24:00.002Z

I am rather a fan of the concept of a mystery sock pattern. You get a clue a week and at the end of clues you have a finished sock, it’s fun. It’s particularly good because in theory you can complete each clue as it comes out and then have the rest of the week to knit other things before another clue is published. My last two mystery socks I’ve not been so diligent about finishing clues as soon as they’re published but with the March Mock on Sock Knitters Anonymous I am hopeful that I will stick to the knitting schedule.

Knowing this was a lace sock and feeling a need for more lace socks in my collection (intentional holes in socks may seem a bit silly but I think they look so pretty that I overlook the madness) I prepared ahead. At the weekend I went stash diving and came out with what I decided was the perfect yarn.

To the sensible eye this may not look the perfect yarn for a lace pattern, the colours may obscure the pattern somewhat so why did I think it was perfect? The colourway is called “Spring Fling”. What could be more perfect for spring mystery socks? Such a perfect name for such a delightful colourway. It makes me think of the park I frequented as a little girl which bursts into colour every spring with purple crocuses, for me this yarn is the purple of those crocuses against the green grass, just wonderful. Of course I’ve made it clear in the past I have a great fondness for green but purple comes pretty high up my list as well, particularly combined with green. I had a poke through my stash and I have quite a few yarns which combine these colours and that makes me feel terribly excited.

I love, love, love Laughing Yaffle yarn by the way, the colours are always fabulous and the pair of socks I’ve knit from it (the rest lurks in my stash filled with beautiful, colourful potential) have worn really well. If you haven’t before you should totally click the link and check out her shop.

I weighed my skein before winding so I knew when to stop winding my first ball and start a second. I know it should be 100g but I do like to double check so my two balls are exactly the same weight and therefore length.

I then set about winding it. Oh how I long for a ball winder and swift to speed this process up, even just a swift would do so I don’t have to rest it over my knees or enlist the help of Mr NM or my mother.

When I was done I had two balls of yarn ready so I’d be able to knit both socks at the same time and hopefully avoid the dreaded second sock syndrome. I don’t even bother attempting centre pull balls, I’ve tried in the past and ended in a dreadful tangle so go for the traditional ball which is fine for me, I don’t mind it bobbing around when I’m knitting as I don’t have any pets or small children who might decide it’s a play thing.

This morning I had this, yes, this morning! I took a photo before work and it was almost fully light outside if a little overcast. I will admit I attempted to brighten up the picture with some picture editing software (and have put the contrast up a bit too much, oh dear) but still, it was light in the morning so I am a happy monkey.

The ribbing is a little wonky but never mind, that will even out when it has had a wash. I’m already loving the pattern and there are some pretty examples in the group of people who have completed the first clue so I’m excited about what this sock could become.

If you read Mimi’s blog (and you should) she has put up details about the second annual knitting and crochet blog week. I read some blogs that were participating last year but didn’t join in myself. I am going to have a go this year and am all ready thinking about things to write and looking forward to it. I hope lots of people join in and have fun with this, particularly with day 5.

Just for your information I may or may not be suffering from a case of not just startitis but a particularly aggressive strain of sock-startitis. I have the overwhelming urge to cast on ALL THE SOCKS with no clear sign of when or if this will pass. Symptoms have included obsessively going through my sock yarn stash, considering buying more dpns to allow for an increased number of SIPs and bookmarking just about every page in Knit.Sock.Love. Protect yourself for I fear it’s highly contagious and an be contracted by looking through beautiful sock projects on Ravelry, sock yarn fumes and indeed ownership of Knit.Sock.Love. Membership of the Sock Knitters Anonymous group on Ravelry doesn't help. You have been warned.

Signs of spring

2011-02-27T15:23:00.003Z

I had intended to post about how spring was coming last weekend, through the week I'd seen the signs on the garden and was rather excited. I got up on Saturday morning ready to take my camera into the garden, opened the bedroom curtains and was met with this

at the back where the flowers were starting to peek through was this.

Rather a backwards step towards winter! Fortunately the snow melted as quickly as it showed up and the week and this weekend went back to showing signs of spring to come.

I don't dislike winter but I wont deny that I am very fond of spring. My main issue with winter is the darkness so in the last two weeks when the sun has been almost up as I've left for work and still just about up when I set off home again was very exciting. The days are getting longer, it's not quite as cold and it's much easier to get out of bed.

I am hoping there wont be any more snow and that the weather gets it's act together and Spring makes a proper appearance. It's clearly making some attempts as there are flowers in the front garden

Snowdrops and the beginnings of other flowers in the back

I'm not a gardener so my ability to identify flowers is very limited but I can definitely see they're coming. I can also see some weeds are coming up too, the worst part of spring/summer being having to actually maintain the garden! I am just rubbish at it. I do like flowers though, so pretty. The other good thing about the beginnings of spring is it means it will be our wedding anniversary soon and we have an exciting trip away planned, I can't wait!

I gave the oven a little workout this weekend, one of my best friends visited yesterday as did my uncle and his wife. We don't often have guests but I did my best hostess attempt and made cheese scones. I didn't get a photo of them as they were all gobbled up before I go the chance! I did more scones today but fruit ones this time as Mr NM prefers those to savoury ones, I did get a photo. I have no idea where my round cutter has gone so I used a heart shape one! I could always just use a glass but I prefer to make my scones a bit smaller so they're not so naughty (Mr NM can always have two if he thinks they're too small but I really shouldn't!)

A couple of weeks ago I won a competition on Josiekitten's blog. The prize arrived last week but I didn't get chance to take a photo. I got a lovely washcloth, some soap and a chocolate sheep, yum! I will be doing my part and "paying it forwards" at some point but as I've just had a little giveaway I'm going to give it a few weeks before I do.

In knitterly news I'm struggling again with the almost uncontrollable urge to cast on for every pattern that takes my fancy. I finished my first of the gloves for my mum so I am making some progress with my current WIPs.

It looks rather odd without a hand in it so I modelled but my hands are bigger than my mum's and the glove is too small for me. It's lovely and soft though, I love the yarn. I haven't sewn in all the ends as I need my mum to try it on and I may need to pull back the fingers and make them sorter, my friend tried it on yesterday and it was too big for her so I'm worried it will be too big for my mum.

I wont be rushing to knit gloves again, it wasn't difficult but it was a faff knitting the fingers, I think where handknits are concerned I'm very pro-mitten!

The faffiness of knitting the fingers led to a burst of second-glove-syndrome, not unlike second-sock-syndrome. I was bored and I wanted to knit just about anything else. The anything else turned out to be socks, the anything else usually is socks, even with second-sock-syndrome I usually want to cast on a new sock in a different pattern instead of knitting the second sock in the first pattern!

I think the urge was enhanced by me packing off that skein of Jitterbug in the giveaway, I wanted to knit with one of the other skeins of Jitterbug I had! It has been lurking in my stash for ages so I wound it into a ball and got started on my second pair of Monkey socks.

This is quite possibly the most addictive sock pattern ever. I cast on the first sock on Tuesday evening, I didn't knit at all on Wednesday as I was at choir, on Saturday morning I had this much sock:

By Saturday evening I had this:

OK so it's shorter in the leg than my previous pair of Monkey socks (I did 4 repeats) as I was concerned about the possibility of running out of yarn. Jitterbug is quite short in the yardage department but even so, considering I'm not the quickest knitter and I only get a bit of knitting time on weekday evenings and had guests on Saturday that's not bad going!

Instead of casting on the second Monkey sock, something I could happily do as right now I feel I could knit all my sock yarn into this pattern, I cast on my second glove. I'm about half way through the ribbing on the cuff and am hopeful they'll be ready in time for my mum's birthday.

I hope everyone has a lovely week filled with knitterly goodness and other wonderful things.

We have a winner!

2011-02-21T18:22:00.002Z

Evening all, thank you for all the entries in my little competition. I used a random number generator (as my first two comments were from the same person I counted that as 1) and it came up with number 19.

Counting through my comments that told me the winner was Mimi, I shall be in touch for your contact details and will send this lovely Jitterbug yarn your way

Thank you everyone for commenting, it was lovely to have comments from new people and to get some new blogs to have a nosey through. I am sure I'll be having more little giveaways in future as I do love to share the knitterly love whatever time of year.

All you need is love - a giveaway

2011-02-14T11:27:00.001Z

After posting yesterday I noted that it was my hundredth post, combined with it being Valentines Day today I thought I’d “share the love” and have a little giveaway in celebration. If you’d like to be in with a chance of winning all you have to do is leave a comment on this post by MIDNIGHT GMT on FRIDAY 18th FEBRUARY and this delightfully squishy skein of Colinette Jitterbug in the rich and vibrant colourway Jewel could be winging it’s way to you.

I’m happy to ship anywhere (of course sending overseas will take longer but hey, free yarn!) and will pick a winner with one of those clever random number generator things at the weekend. You don’t have to have commented before to win and it’s always nice to “see” new people commenting so I can come and check out your blogs.

Good luck and happy Valentines Day or if you’re not a fan, happy February 14th and happy hundred and first post to me!

Domestic bliss

2011-02-13T17:05:00.002Z

I do hope everyone has had a wonderful week, mine has been rather lovely even if the weather has been wet and grey.

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my purple socks, I was pleased to see others liked them as well. I do love twisted stitches and tiny cables on socks, they add interest to the knitting and are so pretty, they also make people think you're terribly clever which I can assure you I'm not! In answer to the questions they do fit pretty perfectly, possibly the best of any of my hand knit socks and I'm sure it's the extended sections of twisted ribbing that cause that. I didn't use a cable needle, I hardly ever use one any more and for crossed over stitches like those in my socks I really don't think it's necessary. A cable needle is just something else for me to lose!

I thought I'd share my weekend activities with you, it wasn't just knitting! Monkey towers has been a picture of domesticity this weekend as I got my apron on and settled in for some much needed kitchen time. I used to bake a lot but haven't really felt the urge lately until the last week when I've felt the uncontrollable urge to bake lots of things. Mr NM is very pleased with these urges.

This

became this

Which became this on Saturday lunchtime

This

Became this

Served in Mr NM's favourite way, I must admit it's shop bought jam. They joke about me being in the WI at work but I only bake and knit, I've never tried making jam or chutney or anything like that...maybe something to try in future.

As it's Valentines Day tomorrow I treated Mr NM to one of his favourite things, home made pie with silly romantic decoration

I also made this (but forgot a pre-baking photo) a very simple tea loaf.

Worry not though, there was knitting. Mr NM's Valentines gift was finished and he has a new pair of enormous hand knit socks for his enormous feet. He even agreed to model them (as he couldn't wait until Valentines day and wanted to wear them straight away!)

Mr NM's socks were knit 2 at a time magic loop and were finished in exactly two weeks which I'm pretty pleased with as I'm pretty sure that makes these my fastest finished pair of socks. I'm sure the two at a time helped with that as (obviously) I didn't have a second sock to knit, when one was finished the other was finished. I don't think I'll be knitting all my socks like this but for plain stockinette I am sold. Ravelry project page is here for details of yarn, needles and such. He is calling them his space socks but I'm still calling them my levelling up socks as I have learned a new knitting skill and I am very pleased that I did.

I now don't have any socks OTN which will need to be remedied soon. I know I need to try toe up but that might wait as I have my eye firmly on my Knit. Sock. Love. book and the many gorgeous patterns within.

Have a lovely week all.

Tiny twisted stitches - FO Friday

2011-02-11T22:06:00.004Z

As promised photos of my finished purple socks. I LOVE them. I love cables, I love teeny tiny twisted stitches, I love the purple yarn and the fit, I love the way the twisted stitches go down to a point at the back. LOVE LOVE LOVE. These purple socks make my feet very happy indeed.

The purple is slightly darker than it appears in the photos, some of the progress pictures on my project page give a more accurate idea of the colour.

More photos and details are on my project page here but I'll give you the basics.

Cast on: 5th November

Cast off: 5th February (Christmas got in the way a bit!)

Pattern: Twisted Mockery by Lisa Stichweh an excellent pattern, clear and well written, I recommend it and I'm sure I'll knit other patterns of hers as she has some lovely designs

Needles: 2.75 & 2.5mm (magic loop)

Yarn: Ripples Crafts hand dyed sock yarn in Summer Sweet Pea

I am very happy with my latest finished socks and excited to be two pairs into my 12 pair goal for 2011 already.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

In case you wondered (because I would) I have them pulled up over footless tights, they were sadly hidden in boots but did a very important job of keeping my feet warm in our ice-box of an office.

Green gloves for mum - WIP Wednesday

2011-02-09T15:35:00.004Z

Just a quick show of my new project today...yes another but I've finished my purple socks so I'm allowed something new on the needles.

The beginnings of my mum's birthday presents, a pair of gloves to match the Ishbel I knit for her birthday

A hastily taken photo from my camera phone as I forgot to charge the batteries for my proper camera, I really must do that so I can take some pictures of my newly finished socks. The gloves are from a pattern in one of my knitting magazines which my mum picked out. The tips of the finger and thumb of one hand are open to allow the wearer to turn pages in a book or use an MP3 player/touch screen device. I am going to attempt to make little flip tops though for when she's just wearing them as regular gloves, we'll see how that goes.

I am racing along on the feet for my husband's socks hoping to be finished for Valentines day but I don't have a picture. I really need to remember to take pictures of everything at the weekend when I have daylight. Fortunately the days do seem to be getting longer so hopefully it wont be long until I can take photos before or after work, roll on spring!

Excited

2011-02-08T09:14:00.000Z

I am terribly excited at the moment, yesterday I was asked a question I have never been asked before and I could hardly contain myself. My friend at work asked me to teach her to knit. I said I could provide the needles if she picked up some yarn (this is partly me being precious about my stash I'll admit but I genuinely don't have anything in that isn't either allocated to a project or beautiful sock yarn) and I'd teach her in lunch breaks at work.

I went hunting through my needles to find some I could give to her, I have a rather alarming number of knitting needles…not so many as were posted about on the Yarn Harlot blog yesterday but considering I've only been knitting for 2.5 years I may be well on my way to a collection like that if I don't stop buying them! I grabbed 2 sets of bamboo needles, a set of 4mm and a set of 4.5mm and I put them in my work bag. This may just be an excuse for me to show off my work bag but I do love it so...

Oh how I hope my friend enjoys knitting and gets into it. I'm not sure whether she will but I do hope so. Right now she's excited so I'm excited and I have high hopes that the knitting bug will spread across the office so people are genuinely interested when I show them my knitting instead of just being polite.

I also got rather over excited when walking for the bus after work yesterday. My LYS sells cotton bags with the shop name on them (also free if you spend over a certain amount) and I saw a girl carrying one. A knitter in the wild! Well possbily anyway…I gave her a big "hello knitting friend!" grin, she gave me a "you are clearly a crazy person" look. I really need to learn to contain myself when there are knitter sightings but I don't see many out and about so I just can't help myself.

The universe heard me

2011-02-06T16:30:00.002Z

I believe I mentioned previously that I'm on a yarn diet at the moment, I've been very good as well and haven't purchased any since my sale purchases at the end of December. Unfortunately in my attempts to avoid buying yarn which involve avoiding yarn shops both on-line and locally I've taken to coveting knitting accessories, they're not yarn, I can buy those right?

Not really. Whilst part of my decision to go on a yarn diet is motivated by avoiding accumulating a massive stash and actually wanting to knit the lovely yarn I have part of it is more general money saving. We'd like to buy a house at some point in the future which means cutting back on spending in other areas. Sad but a fact of life...perhaps when we do buy that house (years into the future) I can have a knitting room to make up for the hardships I'm enduring now buy not buying yarn!

One thing I've really, really wanted for some time was a new needle case for my interchangeable needle set. I'd been looking at some rather charming ones on Etsy and seriously considering a purchase on payday.

A couple of weeks ago a letter came thanking me for my knitting magazine subscription (well Mr.NM's subscription to The Knitter, it was my paper gift for our first wedding anniversary) and saying they were going to send a free gift, I love free gifts. I got a skein of Fyberspates laceweight for my first free gift from them so was hoping for something equally lovely.

Imagine my delight when this came through the door

Isn't that lovely not to mention perfect? It's a Della Q needle case, more specifically it's a case designed to hold interchangeable needle sets, the Que-i, it's just what I wanted!

The needle tips are in the centre and then there are little pockets for the chords and under those a zipped section for accessories.

I just love it. It's a gorgeous colour as well, green may be my favourite but I am rather fond of purple as well, especially such a rich, deep purple as this. It's gorgeous. It looks like the universe was listening to me, I wanted an interchangeable needle case and it sent me one. I wont be greedy though, I've probably had my luck for this year.

Another purple thing...just a sneaky peek, proof they're finished as they were top down socks...

I'll show you more of those another day.

I hope the week ahead is wonderful for everyone and that you've all had lovely weekends packed with your favourite things.

An appropriate project for the time of year

2011-02-02T12:28:00.003Z

I've tried taking pictures inside and outside from all angles and I just can't capture the exact shade of green this lovely Felted Tweed Aran is. You will just have to believe me that it's a lovely green well described by the colourway Sage, a dusty, herby green with little flecks of cream and brown.

The yoke seemed to take forever but of course it didn't, I will not deny some boredom in the endless garter stitch but it was over soon enough. What it did take was A LOT of yarn. I'm on my 4th ball already but now I'm past that garter stitch and the stitch count has dropped the yarn isn't being eaten up at quite such a rate.

This is a great pattern, 10,258 knitters on Ravelry can't be wrong! The instructions are clear and so far I like it a lot. I'm already pondering the perfect buttons.

Where the garter stitch turns into lovely lace. This pattern was pretty instantly memorable and I can knit and watch TV without having to focus too much on my cardigan, always a plus.

The yarn is very fuzzy and leaves little strands of fluff all over me when I'm knitting with it but I don't care.

I'm already 6 repeats through the lace and this cardigan really is growing quickly. Knowing the only sewing I have to do at the end is adding buttons feels great. I am a little disappointed with my button holes, I followed a great tutorial but they're still a bit sloppy so I'll have to find some way to reinforce those as well, I think I'll have to get a crochet hook out and work out what to do with that. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it though.

In other frustrating news I'm sick and feeling very sorry for myself, I'd better make a quick recovery as I am the worst sick person ever.

Done and dusted

2011-01-31T13:45:00.007Z

I know I promised a post on The Blasted Cardigan of Doom with modelled photographs and then didn’t actually post one. This was mostly as I had photos taken and came up against a problem. I got Mr NM to take the pictures, I believe the saying is “don’t quit your day job” photographer he is not.

They aren’t bad photos as such but they weren’t really what I was looking for and I’m not sure they really show off the cardigan all that well. Still I shall share as I’m unlikely to get a better photographer any time soon and I don’t have a tripod so setting up some sort of self-portrait scenario is not going to happen.

Some close ups

As the actual photo he took of me modelling it was poorly lit AND out of focus (bonus points) so the best I have to share is an action shot of me wearing it to the party celebrating his Grandma’s birthday and his grandparents’ 50th Wedding anniversary and looking like the world’s biggest dork…just for a change.

It is getting quite a bit of wear so I’m happy and I definitely feel I’ve caught the sweater bug as I’m knitting another cardigan and have a little queue of them lining up. If only there were more hours in the day to knit everything I want to…not to mention the yarn budget to match!

Old friends and new

2011-01-26T11:30:00.001Z

A quick work in progress Wednesday post from me, an on-going project and a new one.

The purple “Twisted Mockery” socks continue, I knit the heel flaps at the weekend and they continue to be lovely and the yarn continues to be a joy to knit with and I continue to think if I can get through some more of my stash I’ll join Ripplescrafts sock yarn club again. Project page here

As you can see I decided to go for a slip stitch heel for the sturdiness and the cushioning. I love the way the ribbing goes to a point at the back, this is a great pattern and I really recommend it.

My second project is a new one. It has been in my queue pretty much since I started knitting and joined Ravelry in 2008 along with the queues and project pages of pretty much every other knitter on there! It’s a February Lady Sweater, I felt a seamless cardigan was necessary after the Blasted Cardigan of Doom and am using the Felted Tweed Aran I got in the sales. The yarn looks grey here (as well as out of focus, oh dear!) but I assure you it’s a lovely shade of sage green. Roll on spring, more daylight hours and hopefully fewer grey days where what light there is just isn’t enough. Project page here

I hope your WIPs are progressing smoothly and that the week is treating you kindly.

Level up!

2011-01-23T17:52:00.003Z

Evening all. I hope the past week was good to you and the new one will be also.

Whilst my plans for 2011 had been to update my blog twice a week I rather failed this week, mostly because my prime photographing opportunity in the winter months is at the weekend and last weekend we were doing family things with the in-laws, very little knitting was done never mind photography.

This weekend has been better. For a start being at home has meant a lot of incredibly dull but incredibly necessary jobs have been done. All of our clean clothes are ironed, I went shopping so we have food for the week ahead, I made soup and lasagne from scratch (well I used pre-made pasta so almost from scratch!) with extra of both for the freezer ready for busier times, I had a trim at the hairdressers, I cut Mr NM's hair and I put several loads into the washing machine. In our house this gets me "achievement points" and means I can tell Mr NM I've done lots of things and so I shall sit and knit as much as I please. I'm allowed to sit and knit as much as I please anyway but it's more satisfying when I know all of the housework is done already.

As well as housework "achievement points" I got some knitting "achievement points" and worked on my goal of learning new knitterly techniques. I levelled up on my sock knitting skills with a new project (losing points for finishing projects before starting new ones, oops) in which I am knitting a pair of sock using magic loop, both socks on one needle. No second sock syndrome, no counting rows to make sure they match. Nope, they will match and I'll finish the pair at the same time. These are for Mr NM which gets bonus points as he does ask for new socks on a rather frequent basis.

Yarn/needle/pattern details are on my ravelry project page here.

I'll be honest, I always thought I was a DPNs all the way girl, I really did. I must now admit I have totally fallen in love with magic loop. That is not to say I'm putting down my DPNs, not at all. It's just that sometimes I can see magic loop is the way to go. I don't get ladders in stockinette when knitting magic loop, I don't get them with DPNs if I switch the stitches on the needles but that means remembering which is the first stitch, no such problem with magic loop. Also I've got a habit of shoving sock projects in the bottom of my handbag and alongside this a habit of losing whatever I'm using to stop my stitches sliding off the needles, no such problem with magic loop.

I will admit I'm a little afraid of the bit where I get to the heel BUT I have this tutorial and I'm reminding myself that it will all be fine, it's only knitting, no one dies if I make a mistake. It will be just fine.

So yes, achievement points and levelling up.

This post may have been influenced by my frequent observations of Mr NM as he plays computer games and the discussions that follow.

Autumnal socks in winter - FO Friday

2011-01-14T09:29:00.003Z

I've made a start on my goal of 12 finished pairs of socks for the year, I may have cheated by starting them in October but I've finished them in 2011 so they count to this year's total.

Autumnal mystery socks
Pattern: 2010 TTL Mystery Sock by Kirsten Kapur
Yarn: Ripplescrafts hand dyed sock yarn in Spring Myrtle

This picture is a bit closer for colour accuracy but the red is a bit darker than this

Just because I like playing with the macro function on my camera

I enjoyed knitting the socks, I wasn't sure about the sampler style of them but actually it really does work and I like them a lot. When I actually focussed the knit was quick and the pattern easy to memorise. The yarn is lovely too and I think when I've worked through a bit more of my stash I may join the Ripplescrafts sock yarn club again as the service was excellent, the colours are really rich and the dye doesn't run when you wash them as it has in other handdyed yarn I've used. This reminds me I must pick up some white vinegar and attempt to set the dye a bit better on my lime green socks which many washes later continue to make the water look like the cheap and shockingly sugary limeade I drank as a child.

Also the blasted cardigan of doom was finished last night, I took a quick, late night, no natural light photo as proof but I think this cardigan deserves a blog entry of it's own with some better pictures of me modelling it.

Let's twist again

2011-01-12T10:33:00.002Z

The cardigan of doom still hasn't dried so I'm really hoping it hurries up with that. Mr NM is away overnight on Thursday which is looking like prime, quiet, making up time. I do know how to mattress stitch and have used it on baby garments I've knit but even then I feel nervous and like I'll much up my cardigan. I need to do it slowly and fingers crossed it will go well and the cabled band will fit around the neck properly and I will be able to graft it together and it will all look great. I hope so!

One of my personal goals for January has been to get the two pairs of socks I've been knitting on since October and November off the needles and finished. I am not allowing myself to cast on any new sock projects (or currently any new projects at all) until they're done. One pair was finished on Sunday (they're awaiting photographing) and the other pair continues to be a WIP:

The pattern is Twisted Mockery by Lisa Stichweh and it was the November Mystery Sock for the Sock Knitters Anonymous group on Ravelry. Clearly I didn't actually finish it in November! The yarn is from Ripples Crafts and was part of the sock club last year, I think it was April but it could have been May. It's a darker purple than the picture shows.

I love the way the diagonal bands of twisted stitches come right round to the back of the foot ending in a point

I'm actually further on than this now as I was knitting on them yesterday evening, I am 4 rows from finishing the first chart on the second sock and they did feel to be flying but we did watch two films last night and I knit throughout which helped! I am not the fastest knitter so I really need time to sit down and do nothing but for a few hours if I'm going to make good progress. I am trying to make a decision for the heel. The pattern specifies a slipped stitch heel which I know is the more hardwearing option but a stockinette heel would continue the stockinette which has been added in to the back of the foot and I think that would look lovely. I just can't decide. I do have a pair of socks with a stockinette heel flap and they haven't worn through nor do they look in any worse condition than my socks with slipped stitch heels. Decisions decisions.

I walked past this sculpture near my work when I was on my lunchbreak yesterday, I don't usually have my camera when I was past but as I was doing my WIP photos I did and all I could think when looking at it was that it should be holding a skein of yarn ready to be wound! Perhaps I knit too much…

Finishing what I started

2011-01-11T09:24:00.003Z

When I got home from work last night this was waiting on the doormat, a slight break in my stashdown but a necessary purchase so it doesn't count.

I couldn't get the same dye lot and it's a little darker but it's not too obvious and honestly I don't care, the knitting on the Cardigan of Doom is DONE. You read that right, finished. I've knit it. The parts are all washed and it's drying on our spare bed as I type ready for seaming.

I'm a bit nervous about the finishing, this is the first adult sized garment I've made and my making up skills do rather leave something to be desired. It's not so bad on baby things, they're tiny, there isn't that much sewing. This is looking like A LOT of sewing and I'm dreading it a bit.

Four words that are appealing for my next adult knit:

Top down, seamless construction.

Library enhancement

2011-01-10T10:23:00.002Z

Along with my goal of actually using my recipe books to cook recipes from instead of just drooling over the pictures I am going to make some effort to knit patterns from my knitting books. I have rather a lot of knitting pattern books, not many compared to some I'm sure but rather a lot. I have also increased my knitting pattern book collection with presents and spending money from Christmas, the last of my new knitting books arrived on Saturday morning.

This is more than just a pattern book and includes instructions for "advanced" knitting techniques such as colourwork, cables, lace, pattern design and scary things that put fear into my heart such as this mad thing they call "steeking". I had read positive reviews and I'm one of many knitters who learned (or rather re-learned as my grandma had taught me the basics as a child) how to knit from Debbie Stoller's Stitch and Bitch. I never knit any of the patterns from the first book (apart from the ribbed scarf but that's hardly a pattern) but I found it incredibly useful for tips and techniques. I had heard that this book has not only the clear instructions with pictures of her previous books but also has some fabulous patterns. The people who said this were not wrong. It does have lovely patterns for garments and accessories which I am sure I will actually use and actually knit from and I would definitely recommend it.

I must confess though that from all my knitting books the only patterns I've actually knit from them were my MiL's scarf which was a pattern from Knitted Lace of Estonia, the Elizabeth Zimmerman mittens from The Knitter's Almanac (and even then I used an on-line mod for the thumbs), the ribbed scarf from Stitch and Bitch (as I said, hardly a pattern) and I use Yarn Harlot's sock recipe for my basic socks. I know Monkey appears in Knit. Sock. Love. but I knit it from the pattern on Knitty and I have cast on a scarf pattern from my sock yarn One Skein Wonders Book. I'm as bad with magazines. I subscribe to The Knitter (well Mr NM pays, it was a present) and buy Simply Knitting and Get Knitted every month but I rarely actually knit from them. I really must start actually using these books and magazines for patterns as well as the wonder that is the internet otherwise why did I pay for them?

One thing I did knit from a magazine pattern, the Cardigan of Doom, we saw how well that went! Worry not though, I have not burned it in the back garden in a stinking rage, I promise. I am simply awaiting the delivery of a ball of Pompero bought on ebay to finish it off. It will be the wrong dyelot and right on the front which is annoying BUT I do have long hair which I generally wear loose over my shoulders so hopefully that will hide the bit knit from a different dyelot and no one will notice.

Also note to self not buying yarn doesn't really count if I keep buying knitting books instead, it's still spending money.

Getting my act together

2011-01-09T17:55:00.003Z

Good evening everyone, I hope that the first week of 2011 has been good to you, it has to me and there are still a couple of hours in which I can eat dinner, do some knitting and try to forget it's Monday tomorrow and I have to go back to work.

A key part of my greater plans for 2011 is to be more organised. In my head I am a very organised person, I am addicted to writing lists and making spreadsheets to manage my budgets and managing my life. In reality I start these things then they tail off and I end up in a great big muddle over and over again. NO MORE I SAY! Mr NM says no more too as he is part of the 2011 organisation drive.

Mr NM and I rent a small and far from perfectly formed 1960s semi. In many ways it's lovely, our neighbours and pleasant enough and the street is quite quiet. Where it all falls down is storage space. Sadly both Mr NM and I are hoarders, not in the scary way like in that US TV programme but we do have a habit of hanging onto things and after over 8 years together there is a lot to hang on to! Part of our organisation drive is using the space we have more effectively (and I'll admit some getting rid of stuff) but we're taking it slowly instead of trying to do everything all in one go and at once and getting very disheartened, this is where my organisation drives usually fall down!

I'm happy though as this weekend organisation job 1 was completed and I am very happy with the result. One of the problems with our in many ways lovely house is the kitchen. Most people on the street have knocked the kitchen into the dining room for a open plan type affair or have built our extensions. Whoever owned ours before the landlord never decided to do this leaving the house with a tiny galley style kitchen. When we moved from our old flat into this house I brought a lot of dry goods with us, I'm a Yorkshire girl, I don't throw things away if I have paid for them! Just over 2 years of living here though meant things I thought we'd use got lost in the back of the cupboards as I bought more stuff. This weekend's job was to sort out the big kitchen cupboard and oh boy did we have some past it's best stuff in there!

Before picture of shame and woe:

After picture of joy and delight:

I need not buy baking supplies for some time! I am so happy now though with my lovely, tidy cupboard and together Mr NM and I are going to keep it that way, maybe I should take a monthly photo as proof and as some incentive to keep it like that, I don't want another photo of shame on my blog. Also the stork tub contains dried fruit, I don't keep margarine in the cupboard!

To assist in the organisation I took a backwards step. I used to organise myself with a diary/planner type affair and I really needed it. Last year I got a new mobile phone which syncs with my google calendar and all sorts, very fancy stuff but really to be fully organised I need pen and paper.

I think I've mentioned my fondness for owls before so when I saw this in Paperchase I couldn't resist:

It's wonderfully laid out with the days of the week on one side and gridded paper on the other for all my lists and notes:

I love it and it's helping already. I am also making a note of what I'm eating as I somehow managed to gain a stone last year and I'd rather not gain any more weight, I'd rather like to lose some if I can.

Having an organised kitchen cupboard allowed me to work on another of my 2011 goals, using my many recipe books and actually cooking meals from them instead of occasionally getting them out and drooling over the pictures. On Saturday night we had a curry night, curry and naan made by me, little nibbly side bits courtesy of Tesco (rice is just rice, hardly requiring a recipe!). If you're thinking this photo explains the weight situation this is Mr NM's portion, I didn't have quite as much.

Don't worry, I did manage to fit in some knitting time!

Damn you cardigan of doom!

2011-01-05T10:36:00.002Z

Welcome to my first WIP Wednesday of 2011

This is what I had of the blasted cardigan of doom on Monday:

Also a closer look at the now correct cable pattern:

Now I have a tale of woe for you. As I knit up the front and changed to my 10th and final ball of Patons Pompero I thought "hmmm, not a lot of yarn left there". I kept knitting on as my ball got smaller and smaller and I started to panic. I tried knitting faster, the age old knitter response to running out of yarn, I'll see if I can out-knit it. It didn't work. Last night I had about 50cm of yarn left but 10 rows of the front and 16 rows of the cable band that goes round the back of the neck to go. I think I responded admirably, I didn't throw the knitting across the room, I didn't stamp and sulk. I was very mature. I know this was entirely my own fault. I bought the exact number of balls of yarn stated in the project, an amateur mistake. I noticed much earlier in the project that it was eating yarn and even then I made no attempt to get more. I just left it. ARGH!

I now have to hunt down a ball of Patons Pompero in Taupe which will be totally the wrong dye lot, so far I've found it online but I'm looking at just under £3 plus postage, I didn't pay that per ball when I bought it from Kemps last February. Annoyed doesn't begin to describe how I'm feeling now whether I accept it's my own damned fault or not.

Blast and dash and darn and flip.

I also have a new project to show you, it would appear that I am powerless to resist a bit of lace of some description (the cardigan and both my sock projects being cabled in nature) and I wanted to try out a project from my new book, Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders: 101 Patterns That Go Way Beyond Socks. Back when I was a new sock knitter I purchased a ball of rather delightful Wendy Happy and intended to knit socks with it as it was with the sock yarns in the shop I bought it from. I then read reviews about it not really being all that great for socks with little or no stretch and going out of shape when forced to be socks. It sat in my stash doing nothing and perhaps feeling a little hurt as I hadn't a clue what to do with it. I then found this pattern, a scarf with a fish motif "swimming" up it, perfect for my yarn which is in the Pisces colourway!

School at Play Scarf

I think my favourite thing about this pattern is the texture on the fish. It uses a stitch I've not used before "make 2 from 2" where you k2tog, leave on the needle then k2tog tbl. It makes a pretty texture which is supposed to look like scales on the fish and does look rather lovely and add an extra bit of interest to the scarf.

I've only knit the first repeat and I like how it's turning out, unfortunately my mother whose birthday is in early March (and is therefore a Pisces herself) has taken rather a shine to it and I'm not sure I can deny her it as a birthday present. We'll see anyway.

I suppose I am now going to start my pursuit of the extra yarn for extra yarn for the cardigan and in the meantime work on finishing the two pairs of socks I have on the go and get another couple of repeats on the scarf done.

1 today!

2011-01-02T14:54:00.002Z

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday dear blog,

Happy birthday to you!

Hello 2011

2011-01-01T15:10:00.003Z

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope everyone had a good night however you chose to celebrate or ignore the passing of another year. I may have drunk more beer than I should and may have a slightly sore head today, just maybe.

I have high hopes for 2011 and ambitious knitting project plans as well as some new skills I hope to learn or improve on.

2011 Knitting Goals

Finish blasted cardigan of doom
Learn how to do colourwork (I've knit a little on my Christmas stockings but I want to do more and do it faster)
Design my own project (I got a "design your own knits" book last Christmas which I've flicked through but I haven't attempted to do it, I'll probably go for socks)
Knit 12 pairs of socks (got to have this one in there!)
Knit another adult sized garment from stashed yarn
Reduce stash (ha!)

Number 5 is where the ambitious project plans come in. My stash includes adult garment quantities of 5 different yarns and whilst I'm only making a goal of a second adult sized garment I'd rather like to attempt to knit 5 adult sized garments and use up these yarns.

Sirdar Peru - this is a chunky weight yarn so anything knit from this shouldn't take too long. I bought it from readicut for about £10 in one of their offers where you get cheap yarn but they pick the colour. Fortunately I got a lovely shade of purple and it will make a very warm jumper or cardigan, I've seen a possible pattern for this.

Rowan Luxury Cotton DK - this is possibly my most difficult yarn to find a pattern for, I have 12 balls so plenty and it's lovely soft yarn in a delicate light purple colour but I'm really not sure what possessed me to buy 12 balls of cotton. Well, I do know, it was cheap from Kemps! It's not really very me though. I don't own any clothing in this colour at all and I'm really not a summery clothes person. I am sure I'll find something suitable though.

Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran - this yarn is LOVELY. It's soft and squidgy and a gorgeous rich, deep pink. It's the only shade of pink I wear and was purchased in the John Lewis post-Christmas sale with the intention of knitting something wonderful last year. I need to make something with this! Also for fear if I don't knit it soon my mum will come and whip it out of my stash to knit herself. I have 12 balls of this.

Rowan Felted Tweed Aran - this was from my recent John Lewis yarn sale splurge and it's my most favouritest colour, green! A gorgeous sage green with little tweedy flecks, just wonderful. I bought 10 balls and am thinking February Lady Sweater which had been my original plan for the pink until I bought this.

Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply - a yarn actually bought with a project in mind! My latest copy of The Knitter has a lovely pattern called Nessa which is a seamless jumper with some simple colourwork on the yoke. I intend to practice colourwork on smaller projects first but the moment I saw this pattern I wanted to wear it which means knitting it! The pattern called for Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply which would have cost about £65 which is just silly so I got this for much less in the John Lewis sale! I just hope I have enough...I just have got a 9th ball as I only got 8 though that should be enough.

For the colourwork I was thinking of combining the blue Rowan Pure Wool 4ply I got as part of my Rowan subscription which is a very pretty shade of blue and looks rather charming with the chocolatey brown of the Rialto 4ply.

I realise this is A LOT of knitting (for me, I'm pretty slow!) but this is just an ideal world amount of knitting, realistically if I finish the blasted cardigan of doom and I knit one new cardigan in 2011 I'll be very pleased with myself.

Do you have big knitting plans for 2011?

Another year over...

2010-12-31T09:57:00.003Z

Whilst I re-learned how to knit in 2008 and knit my first pair of socks in 2009 it wasn’t really until 2010 that I was utterly bitten by the bug. This is the first year when I’ve had a good number of finished objects and can really look back and think wow I did quite a bit of knitting. Not much by the standards of some but rather a lot by my own!

I calculated today that in 2010 I knit approximately 8907 metres of yarn, that’s 8.9km or 5.5 miles of knitting. That sounds like an awful lotv I don’t even want to calculate how many miles of yarn are in my stash, I dread to think.

In my first blog post I wrote:

Part of this blog will be updating progress on my knitting 12 pairs of socks (for myself at least, I've also promised my mum some for her birthday which wont count to my total) and it will also be keeping track of my knitting generally. My other knitting goal for 2010 is to knit my first adult sized garment, a cardigan for myself. I have cardigan/jumper sized quantities of two different yarns in my stash and I want to at least knit one cardigan.

It is also a goal to keep up with my blog, I do have a habit of getting excited about things and being really in to them for a couple of weeks then just giving up, I will not allow my blog to be one of those things.

Well I didn’t quite manage on either of the knitting goals but this is my 83rd blog post in 12 months which isn’t bad going. I can't believe that I even have people "following" my blog and I really appreciate every comment I get, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside that people read and might even be interested in my knitting!

In 2010 I knit (and finished)

10 pairs of socks (including 1 pair for my husband, 1 pair for my mum and 1 pair for my friend’s daughter so really failing on my 12 pairs for myself target!)
2 baby cardigans
2 baby hats
2 Ishbels
1 lace shawl
1 lace scarf
1 shawlette
1 neckwarmer
2 hats
1 pair of mittens
1 washcloth
1 phone sock
1 ipod sock
1 egg cosy
Smoothie hats
2 mini Christmas stockings

That’s 30 FOs (counting the smoothie hats as one), not bad going considering my Ravelry Projects page only shows 8 projects for 2008/9.

I do have three projects still on the needles which include a pair of socks knit up to the gusset decreases (knitting both at the same time), 1 sock ready to start the heel flap and 2 sleeves, a back and a front of a cardigan. Yes that’s THE cardigan also known around these parts as “cardigan of doom”.

This was supposed to be the first adult sized garment part of my 2010 knitting goals and I started it on 25th January 2010 but other projects kept coming along and demanding my attention…then the cable error happened and I tossed it in the naughty corner and didn’t look at it again until yesterday.

Yesterday morning I had this:

Note terrible cable error that left me so frustrated and the needle through that row ready to pull back. We currently have my mum staying with us (due to an unfortunate burst pipe situation at her house, oh dear!) and I showed her the cardigan in my sulk…well she only went and ripped it back, put the stitches onto the needle at the row before the cable error and threw it at me and told me to get on with it!! I now have a back, 2 sleeves and a left front and intend to finish the right front BEFORE 25th January 2011.

The projects I have been most pleased with in 2010 have probably been the lace scarf for my MiL (even if she wasn’t as pleased as me!), my mum’s Ishbel (which she was VERY pleased with to my delight! If you were wondering the yarn is YarnAddict’s Organic Merino sock yarn and it’s lovely stuff, check out her shop, I used her yarn for my MiL’s scarf as well and it is fabulous) and probably my lime green cabled socks.

What have your favourite projects of 2010 been?

My most knit with colours have been various shades of green (well it is my favourite), blue and pink (that was mostly gift knitting) and I have without a doubt purchased more yarn than I have knit, very naughty!

So here’s to the end of another year, I can’t say 2010 has been one of my favourites generally but knitting wise it has been very good. I wish everyone a healthy, safe and very happy 2011 and I’ll see you next year with some new knitting goals to work on!

The most wonderful time of the year.

2010-12-29T15:20:00.003Z

As much as I enjoy visiting our in-laws and had a wonderful Christmas I am incredibly happy to be back in my own home.

I showed a picture of my in-laws' Christmas tree in my last post, well whilst it was clearly large I'm not sure you can quite work out just how big it is in that photo. I got a picture of Mr NM standing next to it for scale, for reference he's 6'3" so not particularly short!

I was rather spoilt at Christmas but am just going to share a few knitterly things I received.

Mr NM did go on my Amazon Wishlist and picked out this book:

Whilst I don't see myself knitting the socks on the cover (oh how I wish I had such pretty toes, mine are best kept under wraps!) I am rather taken with the lovely thick Konnichiwa socks knit on 4mm dpns and they may be my first project from this book.

My Uncle and his wife very generously bought me some Amazon vouchers which led to the purchase of two books from my wishlist which I'd been lusting after since first seeing them.

The first page of Sock Yarn one-skein wonders spoke to me!

I also picked up Luxury Yarn one-skein wonders.

These books fit perfectly with my sock yarn habit and my additional habit of buying the odd skein of beautiful yarn and not having a clue what to make with it! I also see some perfect gift ideas in both of these books.

I did get some new DPNs and a 40cm 4.5mm circular needle but I don't have pictures, I'm sure you can fill in the blanks for what they look like!

The EZ mittens were finished:

My mother in law got herself onto the "naughty list" not to be confused with Father Christmas's list my personal "naughty list" could also be described as the not knitworthy list. Whilst she said it was pretty and that it must have taken a while it was then tossed aside and when we went out shopping she wore a shop bought scarf instead. I'm not knitting for her again!

I am hoping that things are better with my mum. I know they will be, my mum is a knitter, she gets it. She also specifically requested an Ishbel so knows exactly what she's getting. Yes, getting, I finished it!

On Monday afternoon this was my mum's Ishbel:

Yesterday afternoon it looked like this:

This morning it was dry and ready to be wrapped up, we're having a second Christmas dinner with my mum tonight and she'll get her gift then. I'll also get my knitted gift which I'm terribly excited about, I don't know what I will get as I didn't request anything specific but I know she has knit something. I'll let you know.

A little blogging thought...if I will take photos on my spare bed I really should iron the sheets.

Also I may have got money and I might have been to the John Lewis Sale...possibly

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care

2010-12-24T18:23:00.001Z

I did my best to get some good photos of the finished lace scarf but the short, dark days have not made this easy. In the end the scarf came to work with me and I did my best to take photographs in my lunch hour!

Here it is, blocked and ready. I'm very happy with it and just hope my mother in law is as well. I hope I can let it go, accept it will be hers to do with as she wishes and if she wishes to put it in the back of a wardrobe like last year's scarf so be it.

It opened up beautifully with blocking and is now about 68” long, perfect for my mother in law who is about 5'9” I believe scarves should be about as long as you are tall.

I'm now all ready for Christmas and settled in at the in-laws, I was optimistic with packing my knitting:

That very stuffing project bag contains my mum's (still unfinished, oops!) Ishbel, the EZ mitten and if those don't keep me entertained a cabled sock project.

Gifts are piled high under my in-laws' ridiculously large tree and I am very much looking forward to tomorrow and the days we are staying here.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate it, or an enjoyable 25th December and a great weekend if you don't.

Baby it's cold outside - WIP Wednesday

2010-12-22T13:03:00.002Z

Only three sleeps until Christmas!

I fear my stocking may contain coal as I’ve been a naughty girl and done something I really, really, really shouldn’t have done. I cast on a new project!

It has been FREEZING round these parts of late with such ridiculous temperatures as -12ºC when we’ve left the house to go to work. It’s just not right. A very kind person at the Phoenix Knitting Forums included two balls of rather delicious Rowan Tapestry in a swap gift and it felt oh so soft and oh so warm and the colourway was oh so lovely I just couldn’t resist. I cast on a pair of mittens. Totally reasonable I’d say as I also managed to lose the pair to this poor little fingerless glove, the first proper piece of knitting from a pattern ever did:

And and and my mum came over for dinner last night and I couldn’t have her seeing me knitting her Christmas present now could I? That just wouldn’t do. I needed a new project and the sock WIPs I have don’t count as they’re far too complicated for sitting and chatting knitting. Oh yes. New mittens was totally reasonable.

Especially as they’re turning out so pretty, please excuse camera phone pictures as I didn’t bring my proper camera into work and it was far too dark to take photos before leaving the house this morning.

I thought I’d get them looking festive!

A closer look at the stitches…a bit wonky in the middle but nothing blocking wont fix.

A quick shot of the yarn. It changes from a dark, charcoal grey through to an incredibly light, almost white grey and back. It’s soft and fuzzy and I’ll admit a touch on the splitty side but knit up it’s so gorgeous I totally forgive the splitting.

It’s far less blue than it looks in this photo (and the darker bits are darker than they look in the other photos) but here you can see how the increases and decreases work in the pattern and if I say so myself are accentuated by the self-striping yarn.

The pattern is Mitered Mittens by Elizabeth Zimmerman from the Knitter’s Almanac (though I’m going to use the gusset thumb mod I found on-line) in Rowan Tapestry (colourway currently un-known as I don’t have the ball band with me), 48 stitches on 3.75mm needles magic loop. Link to my project page here.

I hope I get bonus knitter points for knitting my first ever Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern (can you call such a short paragraph a pattern?!). I’ve had Knitters Almanac and Knitting Without Tears for a while but have never actually knit anything from either, I just enjoy the read. I thought it was high time I knit something and in these cold times mittens seemed entirely appropriate.

I’m just about ready for Christmas apart from a few small bits to buy (and a missing Amazon package) and we travel to the in-laws on Friday evening weather permitting. The Christmas Monkey I got free with my tea-bags is all ready too and looking very festive with his Christmas jumper!

I hope to be back on Friday with some pictures of the finished scarf for my mother in law.

I have accepted that my mum’s Ishbel will be accompanying me to the in-laws and finished over Christmas which is fine as I’m probably going to see my mum and do gift swapping on 30th December.

He's making a list and checking it twice...

2010-12-20T10:21:00.002Z

Only five sleeps to Christmas and I'm feeling pretty much ready. I am awaiting a few deliveries but Royal Mail were struggling to catch up after the heavy snow only for another lot to fall at the end of last week. It wasn't too bad in Leeds but I imagine plenty of what I ordered is not coming from Leeds so I will have to be patient and if things don't arrive it's OK, they'll turn up eventually and Christmas will just go on for longer!

One thing that will definitely be wrapped and under the tree is my mother in law's scarf! I finally finished the knitting on Saturday evening, grafted the top edge onto the rest of the scarf and on Sunday gave it a bath and pinned it out on the spare bed.

I am really happy with the scarf, I just hope my mother in law is as she asked for a red one…oops! The yarn did look red in the photo on the website I ordered it from but that must have been my computer. Still, she does wear pink and I'd argue it suits her better than red so I am hopeful that she will like this anyway. I did knit her a red scarf last year that she never wears so maybe she doesn't like red scarves as much as she claims! No I'm not entirely sure why she asked me to knit her another scarf when she never wears last year's.

Having a bath

Pinned out, I folded it in half so that the points at either end would be blocked evenly though I do need to work on my blocking skills generally, I'm pretty rubbish at it!

A quick close up!

It was just about dry when I touched it this morning so should be ready by tonight. I am hoping to manage to get it out for a daylight photo before I wrap it up ready for opening on Christmas day.

My mother's Ishbel is not done, I've almost finished the first repeat of chart A which translates to I haven't done very much! Oops. Things have been rather hectic of late though and my knitting has lost out to every other thing I have to do. This is not something I am happy with but alas I have to lead an adult life and sometimes things are just more important than knitting. Fortunately I do still have time as we're spending Christmas with the in-laws and I wont see my mum until the 29th or 30th December (as yet undecided on an exact date!) so I can knit on her Ishbel whilst I'm at the in-laws if I don't finish it before Friday. I doubt I'll finish before Friday!
I have a confession also. On Saturday me and my mum battled through the snow (all 2cm of it!) and went to Ilkley for last minute Christmas shopping. I should have taken my camera as the moor all covered in an icing sugar dusting of snow was beautiful but alas my current brain state (and the fact I'd been at the work Christmas party the night before!) meant I forgot. The confession part is that whilst I did buy for others in Ilkley I snuck in something for myself! Very naughty just before Christmas but there we go. I called in at Create, a rather charming yarn and craft shop and café hidden away in a little arcade. I did make sure I bought yarn I can't buy anywhere else (apart from on their website) and treated myself to a skein of hand dyed Ba T'at sock yarn.

The colourway is "Pheasant" and I do think it's rather lovely and unlike anything else in my stash. I just love the autumnal reds and greens thrown in with the shades of brown…just like a real pheasant. The best bit was when I bought it the very nice lady asked if I'd like to have it wound. As I usually have to enlist the help of my mother or use my feet when winding yarn I accepted their generous offer and watched rather transfixed as they put the skein onto the swift and wound with the ball winder. I really want a swift and ball winder!
Look at the lovely little cake it made

I must admit that having it all wound and ready like that makes me want to knit from it straight away ahead of the masses in my stash. I might just do that, there's no harm in taking it along at Christmas incase a lovely sock knitting book with irresistable patterns may happen to find a way into my stocking.

Oh Christmas tree(s)

2010-12-13T09:51:00.003Z

Things got very festive at Monkey Towers this weekend. I must admit that it doesn’t take a lot to get me feeling festive anyway but this year I have tried to be sensible and I held out until 11th December before the big tree went up. I am rather greedy on the tree front and we actually have two, the smaller one went up on 1st December as that was the day it snowed very heavily and we walked 6 miles home from work, after that I needed some Christmas cheer!

Here is our dinky tree, it’s only 3ft tall and goes on a side table in our living room. Unlike my big tree it is rather subtle and all dark red and gold matching! It does have multi coloured lights though, I much prefer multi coloured lights to white ones and these ones make my heart sing with joy they are so pretty. I can make them twinkle but usually we just have them set to stay on constantly as the twinkling can be a bit distracting and Mr NM calls it the Christmas disco!

As you can see Father Christmas has already made a little visit to our house but he'll have to come again as there should be more presents than that! Also I need to re-arrange my beads.

On Saturday all of our snow and ice had gone so I was finally able to get the car out, I went to Tong Garden Centre which is a rather exciting place to go at Christmas as it turns into a winter wonderland. They sell so many different varieties of artificial tree and every type of light and decoration you can imagine and they are all out on display. They also sell real trees which is what I went for, not for me (Mr NM wont let me have one as he says I’d never clear up all the dropped needles!) but for my mum. She had been away on holiday for two weeks and I was picking her up from the airport in the early hours of Sunday morning. I thought it would be rather pleasant for her to come home to a decorated tree as she likes to have one but hates putting it up. I got her a small real tree in a pot and got it all ready for when she got home. Fortunately she was absolutely delighted with it.

I didn’t escape the garden centre without a little something for myself as well! Whilst our big tree does have standard baubles my preference is very much for wooden and fabric decorations, I buy at least one every year and try to get them when I go on day trips to places I wouldn’t usually shop. This is a tradition I’ve picked up from my mum and one I intend to keep going until I have enough unusual decorations to not need any of the baubles. When I saw this I couldn’t resist, a little buttony star! Perfect.

The Christmas tree was a purchase made when we moved from a two bedroom flat into a house. We used to have a 6ft tree bought from B&Q which was very much from their budget range and when it was our first Christmas in the house 2 years ago I tried the old tree in the corner of our dining room and it looked rather lost to be honest. I saw that there was a special half price offer on all trees at Homebase and headed off to see what I could find. I went for a rather more luxury 7ft tree which has possibly gone the other direction and is a tad too big but I LOVE it. I feel all warm and fuzzy when I dig it out of the shed (fighting off the spiders as I go) and put it up. I love, love, love it! Putting it up usually ends in scratches all over my hands as a battle with each individual branch which must be put on separately but when it’s up it’s wonderful. I love it!

I got new lights this year too and they are just perfect, wonderful, magical! They are also “Christmas disco” lights but again we generally just have them on the steady on setting. You can also see our little Santa lights strung around the curtain pole.

I have been knitting away on my Mother in Law’s scarf and I finished the 31 repeats as written in the pattern with just a smidge of yarn left over from the 440m skein, enough to graft the scarf together with the edging but I don’t think it’s quite enough to do the increase row before the grafting.

Fortunately I bought a second skein of yarn and the thing is it’s not that long as it is and my MiL is a tall lady. I’m going to add a few more repeats before the increases, grafting and blocking and will still have enough extra yarn to knit a pair of socks for myself. Perfect!

I can finally see the light at the end of this pink, lacy tunnel. I have, at long last, memorised this pattern and can get through the repeats quite quickly so will be done with the knitting by the end of the week and can block it over the weekend. Once that’s done I can finish the lace edging on my mum’s Ishbel which can be done up until 23rd December and blocked whilst we’re away for Christmas as we’re at the in-laws for the actual day and having a second Christmas with my mum when we get back. I’m so relieved to see I really will finish my Christmas knits on time!

I like to think that I may not bother with Christmas gift knitting next year but I imagine when it comes to it I will have changed my mind and will do it all over again.

Goodbye snow, hello FOs

2010-12-10T10:51:00.003Z

Yesterday morning this was hanging from our utility area window and had been for some days, yesterday afternoon when I returned from work it was gone. This morning the temperature was 6ºC and the snow and ice was finally melting away. I still skated down our garden path but I could finally see my car again and see an end to the snow.

In between knitting my Christmas gifts I have been involved in some swaps on the Pheonix Knitting Forums. I know that my swapee has received this little stocking, these only take a couple of hours to knit and make up (I’m rubbish at colourwork, you may be faster!) and are so lovely. I may or may not have misplaced the one I knit for myself but I’m sure I’ll be able to whip up another for my own tree.

The other swap was a bigger Secret Santa swap, I know my swapee has received it so I'm OK to post about the FO here.

198 yards of heaven in King Cole Merino Blend Aran I used two full balls and had to break into a third on the second to last row. It was a quick knit and not too tricky so good for gifts. I have used this yarn before and will buy it again, the yardage isn’t great but it’s soft and knits up nicely, it washes well and it’s not too expensive as well as coming in a good range of solid colours. The top picture is most accurate for the colour which I believe is called Kingfisher from looking at the colourways on Modern Knitting but I think the ball band just had a number not a name.

I’m definitely getting into the festive spirit and am starting to feel excited about Christmas.

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

2010-12-03T10:21:00.001Z

I don’t have anything finished to show you today, this week has been a difficult one for reasons that I really don’t wish to share on my blog and not a lot of knitting has taken place. I am still determined to finish my Christmas gifts, I am 16 rows from the end of my secret santa project which I will work through tonight then I’ll be soldiering on with my MiL’s scarf and my mum’s Ishbel. It will be done.

This week I have been immensely thankful for hand knits though I have a confession to make, a terrible confession. I am a bad knitter. Yesterday after assessing the holes in my poor old gloves (not hand knit but a nice Christmas gift from my pre-knitting days and a lovely blend of wool and angora so suitably warm) I did something unthinkable. I marched to the shop and purchased these.

I’m sorry. My other gloves had HOLES in them, unfixable holes and I simply don’t have time to knit myself a new pair of gloves at the moment. The only hand knit gloves I have are fingerless and really they just aren’t good enough.

The reason fingerless gloves aren’t good enough right now? Please see these photos taken on Wednesday when Mr NM and I had to walk home from work as the buses had stopped running, no mean feat as we live nearly 6 miles from the city centre where we work and it’s mostly uphill. I realise some people have had a lot more than this but I think the issue was that the snow was coming down so quickly that it was piling up in the roads before gritters and snow ploughs could even get to it.

This morning it was -11c. Whilst I have knitter guilt I will stand by my decision to purchase those massive ski gloves even if they do mean I’m completely incapable of using my hands for anything as they’re so thick I can’t move my fingers.

After Christmas I’ll knit myself some mittens, I promise.

Pink Vanilla socks - FO

2010-11-26T10:59:00.003Z

The pink vanilla socks are finally finished!! They only took me two months…oh dear! I kept being distracted by much more interesting and beautiful knits. Oh well, they are done now and my friend at work is delighted with them and is sure her daughter will love them too. I rather didn’t want to give them away but they’re for smaller feet than mine so I handed them over!

Plain old stockinette socks with twisted rib cuff and slip stitch heel, 60 stitches on 2.5mm needles in Trekking XXL Pink Vanilla

I was slightly annoyed to find that after my attempt to make the stripes all matchy there was a knot in the second ball of yarn just about an inch before starting the toe so the toes don’t match but the rest just about do. Not sure I’ll bother with any more matching attempts in future though!

We're visiting the in-laws for the weekend (well I'm visiting my in-laws, Mr NM is visiting his parents!) and seeing some friends which should be enjoyable, will also be trying to fit in a bit of Christmas shopping on Saturday afternoon though I am progressing with that. I'm looking forward to our little weekend away but hoping that it doesn't snow too much as we have to cross the Pennines to see them, not much fun in snowy weather!

WIPW - The Christmas edition

2010-11-24T13:12:00.000Z

This is the Christmas edition of my work in progress Wednesday as I've put down the selfish socks and am focussing no getting my Christmas gifts finished. Like the Christmas editions of magazines it's out in November giving time to get ready for the big day. There may be 32 days until Christmas day but that's not 32 knitting days, I'm not doing a great amount of Christmas knitting this year but what I am doing is lace which needs blocking so will have to be finished in enough time before Christmas to be blocked. Considering how long things take to dry in our house sometimes I'd say I only really have about 25 knitting days left giving me time for finishing and wrapping. A scary thought!

Fortunately for me I am now making real progress and honestly believe my Christmas knits will be done in time. I'm glad I didn't overwhelm myself with too many projects but a little cross with myself for giving in to my selfish knitter impulses and starting new projects for myself when I should have been focussing on my gift knits.

First up we have my MiL's scarf. I'd say it's about a third of the way done now if not a bit more. It doesn't take much time to knit a repeat on this but it's becoming incredibly dull as whilst it's only a ten row repeat I've not memorised it exactly and have to keep referring to the chart to double check. I am liking how it looks though and will admit now that I don't really want to give this away as I think it's rather lovely. Still pink isn't really my colour and I did promise the MiL a lace scarf!

For my mummy dearest I'm knitting an Ishbel in her favourite colour and mine, green! I flew through the stockinette section and have knit the first two rows (and purled back of course) of the first lace chart. This is an enjoyable knit and I don't see any issues in getting it finished but like the scarf it does require careful attention and I'd say it requires it moreso than the scarf. I knit the smaller stockinette but intend to do the large lace. There appears to be some issue with the yarn, it's beautiful and soft but every so often there are tiny little sections that are flourescent yellow! It looks like I've taken a highlighter pen to my knitting. I have shown it to my mum as she knows what she's getting and helped me wind the yarn and she's fine with the odd flourescent yellow stitch and loves the yarn generally (of course, she'll always love green yarn!) so I'm ploughing on.

I can't show you the other Christmas gift I've been working on as it's for an on-line Secret Santa swap and whilst I don't believe my swapee reads my blog I don't want to risk giving the game away just in case! This is a nice break from my other two projects as it's knit in aran weight so seems to be growing much more quickly! This will be coming with me at the weekend when we visit the in-laws so my MiL doesn't see her present.

You may notice that the pink vanilla socks which were a recurring part of WIPW and are a Christmassy gift are absent from this blog entry, that's because they're FINISHED! That's for another day though.

I must say my actual Christmas shopping is not progressing so well, so far I've only bought two presents for my husband (both of the silly stocking filler variety) and have asked my uncle to pick up my mum's second present and I'll give him the money. I should probably get a move on before the real Christmas mania sets in!

The word of the day is FOCUS

2010-11-10T12:02:00.003Z

I’m going to start with something I should be knitting, part of my Christmas knitting list. I am making progress on my MiL’s scarf but really not as quickly as I should be making progress. It’s probably about 30cm long now, just over but there is A LOT to do to get it finished. I will get it done though, just need to focus.

The reason I’m not so focused? Socks. It’s always socks, they’re just so tempting and I can’t help myself around them. Progress on the TTL mystery sock has stalled rather (not that it’s a mystery sock now, most people have actually finished!) and this may be the last WIP picture of these for a bit whilst I focus on my Christmas knitting. I’ve turned the heel and picked up for the gusset on one and done the flap and heel turn for the other.

The thing is I know I should be focusing on Christmas knitting, I know that. To my horror I read it’s less than 50 days until Christmas and with most of a lace scarf and an Ishbel to knit (plus the pink vanilla socks I’ve still not finished the second of) I really shouldn’t be knitting (or crocheting!) anything BUT things from my Christmas list which is why the TLL mystery sock is taking a little break along with my cardigan with the still mis-crossed cable. I know this and I tell myself I will focus and be determined and only do Christmas knitting but do I?

What do you think…

In case you’re wondering it’s the SKA November Mystery sock the yarn is from Ripples Crafts and was part of the sock club in June (I think) called Summer Sweet Pea, it’s a darker purple than it looks in the photo.

I just can’t help myself.

And now for something completely different...

2010-11-08T10:04:00.001Z

On Friday evening I finally learned to do something I've wanted to do for such a long time.

Believe me I tried to learn on my own, I watched videos on-line, read instructions on-line and my husband bought me a book with detailed insturctions but could I get my head round it? No. I was visiting my mum on Friday when I spotted a hook in her pen pot so I grabbed a ball of (the cheapest, nastiest, squeakiest, acrylic) yarn and asked her to show me how to crochet granny squares. I'm not really fussed for learning to crochet anything fancy, I love knitting and have not seen any crochet patterns that scream out to me more than knitting ones do. There's just one thing I want to make with crochet and that's granny square blankets.

Thanks to my mum I've started my first one!

Just as my first attempts at knitting were it's wonky, there are mistakes and the tension is uneven BUT it's a crocheted granny square and that makes me happy. I'm going to stick with this one and keep going using up whatever old scraps of acrylic yarn I can find, I don't have much but my mum is always willing to share as she gets lots donated to her so she can make charity things and she can't use it all. I'm happy with this one being cheap, nasty, squeaky acrylic because I'm going to keep it in the car for emergencies and take it camping with us so it needs to be washable. It's fun though, I'm really enjoying it and whilst I don’t see crochet replacing knitting in my heart any time soon I do appreciate the speed of crochet and how I really can just pick it up and do a couple of trebles in between things when I wouldn't have the time to knit a full row. Yep, I'm all for granny squares! I just must not let this overtake my Christmas knitting…nope, mustn't!

Brambles Beret

2010-11-03T11:48:00.003Z

It's Wednesday, it should be my work in progress day but I have nothing to show you. This is not because I don't have works in progress, of course I do, lots! It's just that I've not got anything NEW in progress and I'm sure you're tired of seeing the same old thing over and over and not actually spotting that important part of the phrase, the PROGRESS.

Things have been progressing slowly in NorthernMonkey land, part of this has been because I've been taking some new medication which makes me veeeeeeeeeery sleepy and means that by the time I'm home from work, have done little house-y jobs, had my dinner and sat myself down instead of picking up my needles all I can think of is tucking myself up in bed. I am still knitting, of course I am, I'm just not getting anywhere fast.

I do have a little something to show you, a sign that my needles are still clicking away. I was going to post this as my WIP for today because when I was knitting at the weekend I did get an in-progress shot. I decided however that would be cheating as this is not a work in progress, it is, in fact, a finished object! We visited the in-laws at the weekend and I took some knitting with me. I packed my TTL Mystery socks (still unfinished, oops!) but also threw in my bag the yummy skein of Malabrigo Worsted and the needles to knit myself a Brambles Beret, something I have been itching to knit since I saw the pattern. Well the socks didn't get a look in! I cast on the hat and away I went, knit knit knit, all weekend! The yarn was just so divinely soft and smooshy, the colour so vibrant and the pattern so charming with clear and easy to follow charts. Please excuse the photos, they were hastily taken with my phone so I could show off to a knitty friend but I'm going to try get some better pictures soon. The second photo of the hat in action is more accurate for colour.

Brambles Beret in Malabrigo Worsted in Emerald (I had 42g of yarn leftover) 3.75mm for ribbing (magic loop as didn't have a short enough needle) 4mm 40cm circular then 4mm dpns for the rest of the hat. Size Medium.

I love this hat so much! I probably could have done with going up a needle size but it fits comfortably and snuggly over my ears (I haven't pulled it right down in that picture) so I'm happy. I need to work out what to do with the other 42g of yarn leftover as it's so soft I want to do something with it. The BESTEST bit about this hat though was MrNM reporting to me that one of his work colleagues had seen me in it and asked him where I bought it from as it was gorgeous and she wanted to get one after work! Apparently her reaction when he said I'd knit it was quite priceless but she is unconvinced that she'd be capable of knitting one herself.

Finished objects and stash enhancement

2010-10-29T11:03:00.001+01:00

As it's Friday I feel I'd better start things off with an FO as that's what Fridays are all about right? This was a very quick little project knit at the request of my mother in law. Mr NM's aunt is due to give birth in the next couple of weeks and we've been assured it's a little girl. It better had be now! The mother in law requested two pink hats, one in a newborn size and one in a 3-6 months size. I used a pattern from a magazine for these and I hope they're OK. They're knit in Sirdar Snuggly Baby Crofter which is just wonderfully soft. It's an acrylic/nylon blend but isn't squeaky or nasty, it's soft and wonderful plus it washes really well so is just perfect for baby knits. The original pattern included a little crocheted flower for the top of the hats and believe me I tried to crochet, I did. I just couldn't do it. I am determined to learn though so perhaps the next time someone in the family has a little girl I'll be able to add pretty crocheted flowers to the hats! I just hope Mr NM's aunt likes them.

Moving on…

On Sunday evening I travelled down to London with Mr NM. He had to attend a training course for work down there and I was able to get some cheap train tickets and join him. Whilst he was busy learning I was busy doing a little yarn tour of London! I may have fallen spectacularly off the yarn diet wagon! To be fair though this was pre-planned and aside from the wool week purchases I had largely been saving my yarn money for this trip.

We'll start with Monday which was a gloriously bright but chilly day. I started my day with a trip to John Lewis. I know I can visit there when I see my in-laws but I had £20 in vouchers so I decided I would visit their yarn section first. I had a rule for my yarn purchases in London which was not to buy anything I can buy at my LYS near home, the only shop where this rule did not apply was John Lewis as I suspected they wouldn't have much there that I couldn't buy at home but as it was a voucher I didn't mind so much. It turned out though that I did manage to pick up yarn in John Lewis that isn't on sale at my LYS or at the John Lewis in Liverpool (where the in laws are) so that was good.

My standard could get it at home yarn purchase was two balls of Rowan Kidsilk Haze in a delicious deep orange shade. I'm not a big wearer of orange but I do like it and I just loved this, I believe the colourway is "Marmalade" and I want to use it to make a Citron.

My second yarny purchase at John Lewis was one I can't get at my LYS, they had some Araucania yarns and being a lover of socks I went for some of the Ranco. I don't know if the colourway has a name, it's just numbers on the tag but it's beautiful shades of blue, purple, green and a maroony colour. It's just lovely, very similar colours to the Fyberspates Laceweight I have. This may not become socks though, it may become some sort of shawlette but we'll see. I do think it's rather beautiful whatever it may become.

Whilst in John Lewis some sort of knitting group was meeting and there was a woman wearing the Kaffe Fassett jumper dress from the latest Rowan Magazine, I can't remember the name of the design but it uses many shades of felted tweed and stranded colourwork and it's GORGEOUS. I couldn't dream of having the patience to knit it or more importantly the money for the yarn but this lady had knit one and was wearing it. I tried not to stare but I may have just a bit, I wanted to tell her how beautiful it was and how much I admired it but I got rather shy about it and I'm always unsure of how people will react in London, it's not like Yorkshire so I just admired from afar.

After visiting John Lewis I had a general potter around some museums including looking at the fashion section in the V&A but as it was half term everywhere was rather packed. I got some lunch, one of my favourite things about London that you can't get in Leeds…pick and mix sushi!

We do have some good Japanese restaurants in Leeds including one serving fantastic sushi that is much better than this stuff but come on…it's pick and mix sushi, what's not to love about it?! I have to have some when I'm in London.

In the afternoon I hit one of the proper yarn shops in London, iKnit. The only yarn shop in the UK with a licence so serve alcohol apparently though I didn't have anything to drink!

There was a lot of lovely yarn in iKnit but quite a lot of things I can purchase at my LYS and some things I really couldn't think of a project for, I tried to stick to things I had a project in mind for when I was shopping…for once! In the end I only purchased one skein from iKnit but it is very lovely and is my most favourite colour ever, green! Honestly it is green, even though in this picture it looks rather more blue. It's Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Jade. I was hoping to knit the November MOCK for Sock Knitters Anonymous on Ravelry with this but I'm starting to think that whislt it says "semi-solid" on the lable it's too varigated so I may use something else. I'll find a lovely pattern for this though I'm sure.

After iKnit I did more wandering as the weather was so pleasant and some touristy looking at the outside of the Houses of Parliament and such. I did have a wander on Regents Street and went in Hamleys (half term so a BAD idea but I do love it in there!) and I spotted this in a shop window I just had to take a photo of!

I'd argue that lovely yarn for handknits is the best thing to happen to a sheep where this was advertising the woolen tailoring in the (very expensive) shop but seeing adverts for the campaign for wool is always good. Further knitty type advertising was seen in the window of Accessorize where they are selling their knitted accessories and have this rather lovely stripy "Knits" sign. I'm curious as to what they're going to do with these when they change the window displays but I expect that even if they were willing to give them away Mr NM would not be overly enamoured with me having the word KNITS in giant letters in the house, I wouldn't know where to put it!

Monday was very busy with A LOT of walking and when I woke up on Tuesday my legs ached like crazy! Still I had more to see and another yarn shop to visit that wasn't open on the Monday (I knew it was closed Mondays before going so had planned my shopping around this). My Tuesday started with a trip down memory lane to what used to be my favourite museum in London when I was younger, the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. I even managed to find some interesting knitting related items in there, there was a fair isle jumper in the childrens clothes section but far more interesting was this, I just had to get a photo. I don't know how well you can see but those are teeny tiny handknit mittens made for a baby doll. The details of the doll's origins are here and I was amazed by the detail on the knit items, there was a little vest as well but unfortunately the photo came out even more blurred than the one of the mittens. I just imagnie the time and skill in these because really, they were tiny, the needle used must have been less than 2mm thick as the stitches were smaller than those in my handknit socks. So lovely.

After the museum I headed to Islington to visit Loop. This is truly a yarn shop of dreams, I could have happily maxed out my credit card but I tried to be reserved!

Loop

To start with I purchased some Skein Queen Blush yarn in Maid Marian, this is a blend of merino and cashmere and is so unbelievably soft and snuggly, I believe this will be a shawlette as it's a bit too delicate for socks and I wouldn’t want to ruin it, also I can never have enough green scarves and shawls anyway!

I then went a bit alpaca crazy, oh how I love alpaca and it's dreamy smooth softness and warmth. It's just gorgeous. Firstly I got some Old Maiden Aunt in Last Night's Red Dress which is more purple than red but at the same time less purple than the picture shows, oh the nightmare of photographing colour! It's a sort of plum colour I suppose and I spend half my time rubbing it against my face as it feels so wonderful. The alpaca is so soft then it has a wonderful sheen from the silk content. I intend to use this for another Rose Red and will knit a small this time as mine is too large and falls off my head when I run!

Secondly on the alpaca front I got some laceweight as I am rather falling in love with lace. Whilst there were gorgeous shades of green I told myself I wasn't allowed to get another skein of green yarn! There was also a rather charming coral pink but it's really not my colour at all so I went for this beautiful silvery grey. It's far less blue than the picture shows (though I was tossing up in the shop between a more silvery grey and a blueish grey) and is Alice Lace by Juno Fibre Arts in Shadow Cave (I just had to get some "Alice" lace as that was my grandma's name) which like the Old Maiden Aunt is a blend of Alpaca and Silk and is also dreamily soft. The colour made me think of frosty mornings and this never fails to amuse people but Mr NM's favourite "colour" is grey so I thought he'd like me in a grey shawl. This was my biggest indulgence and the most expensive yarn though I suppose if you calculate pence per metre it was the cheapest yarn…got to love laceweight!

My final purchase from Loop (and again, I really don't know how I managed to limit myself as they had some gorgeous yarn) was for me to see what all the fuss is about. I bought some Malabrigo worsted in Emerald (I know, I know, more green!) I'm going to use this to knit the Brambles Beret from the latest Knitty which I fell in love with the moment I saw it!

So there you go, congratulations if you got through all of that! Here is my fall from the wagon all together, it's not so bad really…I can always think of it as 2 pairs of socks, 2 hats and 3 scarves/shawls. Mr NM and I have also agreed I wont get any more yarn for Christmas either! Speaking of Christmas…I'd better get back to my gift knitting, only 57 days to go!

It's the most wonderful time of the year (or will be soon enough!)

2010-10-22T10:35:00.002+01:00

This is both an FO post and a gentle reminder though I doubt knitters will really need reminding.

Christmas is coming and I don't know about the goose but my WIP bag is getting fat and doing so at a much faster rate than my FO pile. I really need to focus, I'm not going overboard on knitted gifts so actually progressing with the ones I'm making would be a good plan!

A speedly little project knit on Saturday morning in no time at all using Regia's Christmas sock yarn, I have red, cream and green but only used the red and cream here which have little flecks of gold thread running through them for that extra festive feel. The pattern is from Little Cotton Rabbits and is my favourite sort of pattern, a free one! It's knit flat then seamed and had clear pictures with the instructions. This is my first bit of colourwork knitting (not counting stripes and a little bit in a smoothie hat which wasn't really a pattern) and it wasn't too tricky. I am quite slow as my brain refuses to figure out holding yarn in left and right hands meaning I threw both colours with my right hand. I intend to practice though until I can carry a colour in each hand as this monkey wants some colourwork mittens!

I intend to knit a couple more of these little stockings, they're so easy and look so effective. Nothing better than an easy and well written free pattern, especially one that will bring some Christmas cheer!

Progress progress progress

2010-10-20T12:46:00.003+01:00

It’s that time of week again, it seems to come round so quickly. I do love Wednesdays, not just because it’s WIP day and I get to see lovely things other knitters are working on and post about what I’m working on. I’ve always loved Wednesdays (apart from the year I had double maths on Wednesday in High School, that was rubbish!) I love Wednesdays because Wednesday is choir rehearsal day. I’m not much of a singer and definitely better off in the chorus than as a soloist but I love going. Singing is so much fun and I’ve been a member of my choir for 18 years now (though it has changed from an 8 years and up girls and ladies joint choir to an adults only female choir in that time) and I’ve known those ladies all that time. Initially I went as an 8 year old but the ladies still in the choir are mostly the same ones who were there when I was a child. It’s just wonderful and I love it, it’s like a little second family!

Back to the knitting though…

My pink vanilla socks are progressing, not quickly but they’re progressing. I finished the first on holiday and am now getting on with the second. It’s not the most interesting knit, I’d always intended to knit them in tandem but when it came round to it I got so into knitting the first one I finished it in no time and hadn’t even started the second! The second is being done now, I’m sure it wont take long.

Due to my ongoing issues with startitis when I saw what people had knit from the first clue of this year’s Through The Loops mystery sock I just couldn’t help myself and found myself joining in, how could I resist this interesting and ever changing pattern? Well I couldn’t! The yarn was part of the Ripples Crafts sock club earlier this year, some time in spring. The colourway is "Spring Myrtle" but I think it's far more autumnal than spring-ish. It’s a more rusty red than the picture really slows and is just lovely to knit with. I’m enjoying this pattern a lot because it doesn’t get boring and same-y. It’s really good fun.

Some WIPs have not been so good. Remember the cardigan I’ve had on the needles for months on end? The one I was so determined to progress with? Well I quickly finished the back and was feeling very pleased with myself for this.

At the weekend I cast on the left front, I could really see the end of this cardigan drawing nearer and was thoroughly enjoying knitting it. I worked the left front right through the first set of decreases and was feeling very pleased with myself, very pleased indeed. I’d written down which rows all the decreases came on, followed them closely and was racing along through that left front, feeling good…and then…and then…

Then I saw this. Do you see it? You see there, I’ve finished the first lot of decreases but can you see it?

Look closer, see it now?

ARGHHHHHHHHHHH pride comes before a fall and I was feeling really proud of myself when I realised I was already about a quarter of the way up that left front. I just glanced, then had another look when something in my brain said “um that’s not right” nope. It wasn’t right. It was WRONG. It was a miss crossed cable a few rows down. A miss crossed cable a few rows down in possibly one of the most annoying and un-froggable yarns ever. This stuff is like Velcro, it sticks to itself so much. It’s so difficult to even tink a few stitches never mind the rows I’ll have to go back to fix this. I did not fix it at the weekend, oh no. This left front was banished to the naughty corner to think about what it had done, how it had disappointed me, how me and the cardigan just were not friends at the moment.

I wonder if it’s punishment from the knitting gods for not working on my mother in law’s Christmas scarf. I promptly picked that up and almost immediately made a mistake in that too. Clearly my brain had turned to cotton wool.

Not happy.

I will fix that cable at some point but right now the pain is just too raw.

Wool week

2010-10-16T15:28:00.002+01:00

In celebration of wool week I made a little trip to my local yarn store

Baa Ram Ewe is a fantastic yarn shop, it recently won an award from Let's Knit magazine for Best Local Yarn Store and I'd say it's well deserved. They have a good stock of all sorts of yarn, they sell a lot of British brands and locally produced yarn (well we are in Yorkshire, it's not so difficult to sell yarn from local companies even if a lot of them don't actually spin the yarn here anymore!) They also sell Noro, Zauberball, Fyberspates and Natural Dye Studio yarn as well as many other things. They have a knit night every Thursday, (which I can't make it to because I do something else on a Thursday!) put on competitions, have designers visit (including Ysolda, Wooly Wormhead, Amy Butler and soon Susan Crawford), run workshops and are generally fabulous, friendly and super helpful. I love it there and feel so lucky that I've got such a great yarn shop local to me.

I made some lovely wooly purchases there today

First up some Natural Dye Studio Dazzle Sock in the colourway Sweetpea, this is gorgeously soft Blue Faced Leicester wool...yummy!

Also a more subtle but also soft and lovely ball of Wendsleydale Longwool DK weight in the colourway Fennel. This is destined to scratch the "gotta knit a hat" itch I've been feeling lately. This lovely stuff is bred, spun and dyed in Yorkshire just like me! It feels fantastic to support local companies and local crafts.

Finally not purchased at my LYS but direct from the seller on Folksy (though she does sometimes have yarn for sale at my LYS). It's 100% Merino laceweight and it might not be local yarn but it's locally dyed by Kirsty of Wharfdale Woolworks, her Folksy shop is here and is well worth checking out for the beautiful colours and gorgeously soft yarns handdyed in Yorkshire. The colourway is Aquatic and it's all shades of beautiful aqua blue, lovely.

So there you go, that's how I supported Wool Week! I hope you supported wool week in yarny ways too and hope that non-knitters may have celebrated by buying some woollen garments and keeping the British wool trade alive.