Winter came, let's hope it goes again soon!

My goodness has the temperature dropped around here lately. After having a mild winter so far it came as rather a shock! It was just bitter on Saturday morning and at about lunchtime the snow started, it then went on and on and on for the rest of the day. I'd rather hoped it would stop in the evening as I'd been invited to a party but it didn't. I had to give up on the party (as it was at the other side of the city and my car is not made for such conditions) and stay at home where it was warm.

On Sunday Mr.NM went out and took a picture of the snow in on our driveway, I once again stayed in where it was warm and snow-free!



Oh well, the wintery weather is excellent for boosting my urge to knit. Admittedly this urge has been to cast on new warming things for myself but I have resisted! I am continuing with finish or frog it, I'm determined. Another project that went on to the "finish it" pile was a little cardigan for Baby Monkey.



It's a Sirdar pattern knit in Sirdar Snuggly 4ply. My general preference for natural fibres doesn't necessarily go that well with baby things so this one will be machine washable. Also Sirdar Snuggly is rather lovely and soft anyway so it doesn't feel like squeaky acrylic. The only thing I didn't really think through with this pattern was the 4ply and all those cables, I decided my baby was worth it (of course!) but that's the back and it's knit over 88 stitches! If this was a heavier yarn and bigger needles 88 stitches would make a cardigan back for me never mind a baby! No wonder it seems to be going a bit slowly. Still, my baby is totally worth it. Also the smallest size is 0-6 months and I can already see it's going to be bigger than the baby cardigan I made at Christmas so it should fit for a little while. I do prefer bright colours on babies but did think that the light colour went well with the cable pattern for this.

Also some progress, the first of the socks for Mr.NM is finished, hurrah! As is always the case with plain stockinette socks once I picked it up again it whizzed along and was finished in no time at all.

Finish or frog it February 2

Another one for the "to finish" pile, my Lilac Leaf Shawl, started way back in September when everyone else was tempting me with their beautiful lace projects.  Unfortunately the beginning of September was also when baby NM was making his or her presence known by sapping me of all energy and enthusiasm to achieve anything more than constant napping and drinking orange juice!  Needless to say I got as far as knitting one of the lace borders then starting on the second before shoving the project in my knitting basket. 

Last night whilst MrNM was out playing 5-a-side football I picked it up again to see if I could make a bit more progress.  Being lace knitting and in rather lovely laceweight yarn it does require a lot of attention (it also required the purchase of wooden tips after the pains of knitting the first border section with my usual metal knitpros!) and when MrNM is around we usually sit together chatting, possibly watching a film or TV episode and I have to stick to very simple knitting (like the socks for him, the first is finished and I didn't run out of the carefully weighed out 50g ball of yarn!).  In his absence I could focus.


  

I needed to focus.  After this picture was taken (and promise me it will look better when it's blocked!) I got to the part with nupps.  At this point the blasted thing almost ended up in the "to frog" pile as I knit, tinked and re-knit the same two rows about four times before the nupps looked even vaguely not awful.  I considered not bothering but told myself I had left them out of the last shawl I knit that included them in the pattern, I would knit the blasted things on this one.  Anyway the nupp section is done for now, there are some more to come but I have about 300 nupp free rows to go before I get to that part!

Yes I am aware of the crochet hook method of knitting nupps and how it's supposed to be easier but I'm not a crocheter and could not for the life of me find a crochet hook anywhere last night!  I own a few but they appear to have hidden in protest as I almost never use them and when I do it's for such degrading business as picking up dropped stitches and untangling yarn instead of actual crochet.  It's a hard life being a crochet hook in my possession!

Finish or Frog It February

I am declaring this month Finish or Frog It February in the NorthernMonkey household. All those WIPs in my basket must be either finished (or well on their way to it) or frogged by the end of the month. I will NOT be casting on anything new unless I finish everything lucky enough to be put into the "to finish" pile. This is highly unlikely as I have rather let my WIPs build up and one of them is lace knitting.

First to survive my decision and make it on to the "to finish" pile, a pair of socks I started for Mr.NM way back in September, got as far as the heel flap and gave up. Oops. They're just simple, plain, no messing around, stockinette socks. OK so they need to be a size 11 but even then the simplicity factor means they shouldn't take too long to finish. I am now a good way down the foot of the first sock and it's whizzing along.



Hopefully I should get some pictures later today of some projects that are not so lucky and are heading for a one way trip to the frog pond.

Podster Mitts - FO

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

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!

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

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.