All Fingers and Thumbs

The point5ish waistcoat is completed and I officially love it. I polished off the last couple of rows tonight to squeak it into my February FO list. Much as I love neat, tiny stitches going crazy with the 15mm needles was very satisfying. Pattern: A rectangle with giant buttonholes for arm openings Yarn: Colinette Point5 in Cherry (1), unnamed yarn from The Kaleidoscope caramel (2), and two ends of balls (1/2), super soft, warm and beautiful Needles: 15mm plastic straights Started: 25 February 2007 Finished: 28 February 2007 New Skills?: Buttonholes Notes: Very rewarding to see this grow much as it had done in my imagination. After petting the Cherry for a while and enjoying the Three Start Scarf I thought about how that draped and whether it would be possible to make a wrap, then it turned into a wrap with space for the arms. I love how it has turned out, it feels very grand on and the colours are sublime. Just have to sort out a better closing than some bits of yarn - I'm think...

Thanks Marianne for the link to this, couldn't resist as the images were so strong. Read my VisualDNA ™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Taking photos of socks on the hoof is a challenge isn't it?! Pattern: Horcrux Socks Yarn: Sirdar Bonus Flash in Peacock. It is squeaky 100% acrylic, but feels nice and soft and for socks to wear with slippers is just fine. Can't have used more than 50g. Needles: 4mm bamboo DPNs Started: 6 February 2007 Finished: 25 February 2007 New Skills?: Use of yarn overs and decreases to create a pattern. Notes: Doing sock one in stages as the pattern was revealed was excellent fun, though I did wish I had two sets of the right size dpns as it would have been possible to do them alongside each other then. Will definitely do some more socks in heavy weight yarn as they are so quick and I like this size of sock for wearing at home or with big boots. These made a great first pair of patterned socks, though next time I would use a plain yarn to maximise the impact of the lightning bolts. Just to prove I have done both, here they are resting: In other knitting news I finally plucked up the c...

It has come to my attention that knitting blogs are a GOOD thing. Obviously we all know this already but whist reading over my last two posts I was reminded of this fact for two reasons: Reason 1 - Exposure of knitting numptydom and saving of unnecessary purchases (of needles - if not of yarn): I was feeling frustrated because I thought that I needed to get a smaller needle size to try and get gauge for the lovely Flair - however if you already have too many stitches per inch and you knit with a smaller needle you will of course get more stitches per inch. Ah the simplicity of it all. Thankfully I didn't jump straight in and order the 3.75mm circs as I was thinking I would, and seeing it written out alerted me to my yarn addled thinking. That's the good news. The bad news is that having re-measured the swatches I found that I had the right gauge on the 4.5mm needles. I quickly abandoned this swatch as the fabric is quite loose and not what I would like at all. So it would seem ...

Here it is - in all its slightly tarnished glory - the Triple T or Thorn Tank Top. Pattern: Shapely Tank Top in size 41" bust Yarn:Rowanspun DK in Thorn. Love the yarn, soft and fuzzy, a little easy to break but great yardage. 3 skeins. Needles: 4.5mm bamboo straights, 4mm metal straights for the neck and armholes Started: 30 January 2007 Finished: 18 February 2007 New Skills?: Bar Increases on the purl side, lots more experince of short row shaping and picking up stitches which seemed a lot harder than on the heel of a sock. Notes: Well I say 'slightly tarnished glory' as it's not quite as shapely as I'd hoped and the neckline is way higher than I like. It creates a rather larger grey expanse across the chest than I was hoping for and is not the most flattering garment in my wardrobe. Still I think for my first attempt it fits well enough, it's warm and soft and will be useful. Picking up the stitches and seaming was quite a challenge and I hope to get bett...

I think that our grey miaowster has had enough of endless photos being taken of knitted items rather than her. I left my tank top blocking downstairs and came back to find that she thought the only way to get her pic taken was to get on the knitting. Will post proper FO photos when I have managed to prise her off and get myself into it. Some knitting frustration in the air here at the moment. Did my swatches for Flair and I need to try 3.75mm needles to try and get the right gauge, don't have any of those currently... I need to buy two long circs for this project anyway and so I guess I'll get those in 3.75mm - on the bright side it's a good job I didn't go ahead and order them in 4mm which I was sure would be fine. So having abandoned that temporarily I got out the needles and yarn for Blue Lagoon (plumped for the Moonwave finally :o) only to read the pattern more closely and find that the maximum XL size is to fit a 32in bust. What????????????????????????????????...

I started the day off with a batch of biscuits for breakfast - new household rule: healthy porridge for breakfast every other day means you can have whatever you fancy for Sunday breakfast :0) Mmm mmm mmm. I've been very neglectful of my baking lately - partly due to knitting taking up the hobby time, partly to kitchen decimation and partly because I'm trying to cut down on eating so many cakes and biscuits :o( This leads me on to the second new household rule: you can only eat homemade cakes and biscuits. In my world homemade goodies aren't so bad for me anyway as they are full of much nicer, more wholesome ingredients. Calorie reduction-wise they are less available than shop bought and infinitely superior in taste and you may as well really enjoy the calories I think. I don't want to not bake so I will just try and be a bit more restrained, feed most of the batch to 1TB and friends and really savour what I do have. The recipe for these beauties came from the Yarnstor...

So when you've got a kilo of Plaid that needs a project, and you find a project for it, what would be the best thing to do? Buy another kilo of course! Now I have another one of my endless knitting dilemmas (I'm sure when I signed up for this 'hobby' there was nothing in the small print about how much thinking about knitting I would do - like 99% of brain space would be occupied 99% of the time). You see I'm still dreaming of the perfect Plaid jacket style cardi - I can see it (it's slightly longer than hip length, no buttons, slightly bell shaped sleeves - there is a kind of turtle neck - ie the collar stands up round my neck - I'm feeling a moss stitch border thing going on) but I can't find it! This is utterly typical of the way I am about all clothes, and shoes in particular, I have visions of what I want to wear and so seldom find anything exactly right. I should have known my own made clothes would be no easier. On Valentine's Day, lucky girl ...

Lots of lovely weekend knitting means I'm getting around the top bend and into the finishing straight on el tanko. The lure of Flair next is pulling me on. Also my Quick Knit Sock is bearing a pleasingly, striking resemblance to the original. Was that a touch of pride I sense there? Better go carefully! Finally, I have resolved my sock book dilemma. I tried to request the contenders from the library as Charity wisely suggested - not one single copy of any of them in all of Oxfordshire! Now the selection of knitting books in my local branch is poor (though I'm getting them out in rotation to try and encourage them to stock more!) and I didn't really expect it to be anything else but I assumed they would have a little more selection countywide, but no, far too specialist apparently. My careful, considered research was halted as it had barely begun, thankfully webby wonderland didn't let me down. For the moment Charlene shall be my guide to greener sock pastures. Found...

Tragically I live far too close to work to wangle a snow day, though they did let us all go home early :o) Yesterday like a intro for today some yarn arrived called Snowball, having seen plenty today I can confirm it is nothing like a snowball in colour. I got 4 skeins of the Rowanspun DK in Snowball - thought I'd better nab it while it was on ebay so I could do another shapely tank - there's confident that I'll like the Thorn one for you! Sadly one of the skeins is a different dyelot and it really is quite a different colour - so fingers crossed that the shapely tank only takes three - I think it may do actually as there so much yarn per skein. If not I'm sure I'll find something else to knit with it. I really like this yarn, sad that it got discontinued. Also in the photo is a skein of Colinette point five in Cherry - isn't it just such a warming colour? I could cosy right into it! Another ebay bargain - sadly just the one skein but I wanted it so much I sha...

So there has been quite some knitting pride round here the last few days - and we all know what pride comes before don't we - yep a knitting numpty moment. Firstly I was proud of my dedication to the shapely tank this weekend - no sneaky casting on of additional projects and I got on to the back on Sunday. Luckily knitting numptydom did not strike here (though I am little concerned it may be snug - we'll have to see what blocking brings I think). Then last night, feeling like a little side project couldn't do any harm when I was making such good progress, I thought I'd do the socks that Susan is revealing one step at a time. With the time difference I got Sunday's post last night, so I got the yarn I wanted to use, the Sirdar Bonus Flash which I had a swatch of knit on 4.5mm needles. I measured my swatch and figured out I should try 4mm needles to get the right gauge and for an extra dose of 'I'm so proud of myself' thought I'd knit a quick swatc...

So the tank is growing and am feeling quite pleased with the progress, especially as I've been a bit poorly this week. Negotiated the short rows at the hem and the waist decreases fine but messed up when trying to do bar increases on the purl side - had to do a bit of tinking back to where I am now and must do some counting before I try again - found a helpful little video clip which is so much more illuminating than the instructions in my books. Some things you just need to see in action. Am enjoying the Rowanspun, though despite Piglottie's warning not to pull too hard I have broken the yarn once already. Bit of a violent tug when the ball was trapped under my 1TB's elbow didn't do it any favours. It's been fine since though and stands up to the normal pull off the ball so long as there isn't an obstruction! Hope to get lots of knitting in this weekend - maybe even start on those toe-up socks as the yarn has been safely delivered in a ball now - hurrah for ...