1 yukka, 2 yukkas, 3,4,5

A bit of knitting yesterday and a bit today, and Aeolian has 5 repeats of the yukka chart to display twinkling with beads... I love the beads with this yarn and pattern, so I suppose fate knew what he was doing making the others useless and making me buy these out of sheer magpie glitter-seeking reflex.

I still haven't decided how many yukka repeats to do. I was wavering between 6 and 8 repeats (I don't want the enormous shawl, but I do want something larger that the shoulderette version). I have to do an even number of repeats of this chart before moving on. Looking at 5 laid out here, I think I'll do 8. This is currently 9" long by 20" wide (or would be if I could stretch out the other side - short needle) and I think another half-inch won't be enough. An inch and a half should be.

Willow spent the evening trying out new places. She climbed up here out of hubby's hands when he lifted her off my shoulder. Mad cat! Good job she can land on her feet....

Spot the cat in this picture. She used to do this when she was a tiny kitten and we'd panic because we couldn't find her!
She is such a literary cat. She sleeps on all sorts of books. Plus she likes to walk over the one you're trying to read.

Closeup of the yukka pattern. I'm not sure I can see a yukka in this, but it's a nice all-over pattern, and I think it could make a nice beginner's shawl pattern all on its own. If the beginner is better at casting on than me, that is.

Funny how the beads are harder to see close up. I suppose it's because the shadow of me looming over them cuts out the light sparkling off them. They're nice and twinkly really.

Aeolian - bead troubles

I mentioned how I've been wanting to knit Aeolian since it appeared in Knitty this spring... but I've been too scared! Despite being quite a fearless knitter (the third jumper I ever made I invented the pattern as I went along... and I love it!), I haven't knitted a lot of lace - two forest canopy shawls, one with beads, one without (scroll down), plus half an abandoned Cleite which I really must grit my teeth and finish one day. The trouble is, and the reason Cleite is sulking in a drawer somewhere, I hate charts. I get lost, I read the wrong line, my eyes wander and I make mistakes. And then I throw the project in the corner and it gets lost in the mess. Have you seen the edging charts on Aeolian? Terrifying!!
Still, I love this pattern, and I saw such a gorgeous red one at Fibrefest that I just had to buy some yarn then and there (um, I have laceweight in the stash. Quite a lot of it, and much of it is blue. But that's not the point!) and give it a go. Yesterday I cast on. Then ripped out. Cast on, ripped out. Cast on, ripped out. It took me 5 attempts to even get the 13 stitches on the needle to start the set-up chart! This thing just wasn't going to roll over and play nicely. I abandoned the metal circs I had picked out, and went back to bamboo DPNs. Nice and grippy, make stupid stitches behave. By bedtime I had finished the set-up chart and went to sleep feeling triumphant. Hah! Let those sticks and string know who's boss! This morning I have even added one repeat of the Yukka chart without further mishap (yes, I know I am tempting fate!)

But this time, I'm going to win. I have my charts marked up and post-it notes to mark which line I'm on, so my eye can't wander and get confused. I have notes on the side to keep track of how many repeats I've done. (Not sure how many I'm doing yet, aiming for something between the Shoulderette and Shawl sizes). I have highlighters and coloured pencils at the ready. I'm prepared.

What you might not believe is how much trouble the beads on this shawl are giving me. I have lots of beads. Oooh, lots. Here is most of the blue/green seed bead section, just to give you an idea:

Yeah. Most of. Now would you believe that in that lot there weren't the right beads for Aeolian? Well, there weren't. There were some the right colour, but too small to fit on the crochet hook. (I'm using a 0.6 mm, the smallest I've ever seen) There were some big enough, but the wrong blue (this yarn is a petrol blue shade, quite unusual). There were even some that were a lovely blue and the right size, but not enough of them. The shawl verion of Aeolian takes over two thousand beads. 2,250 according to the pattern. I don't know how many I will need, as I'm doing something between the two sizes. But hey, I may need up to 2,250 beads. Time to go shopping (after I realised, during my traumatic cast-on attempts, that the beads are there right from row 1 - this thing has a lot of beads).
Three bead shops later, cursing the lovely petrol blue yarn and wondering why I'd started this, I found some beautiful beads.

They were exactly the right size, they were big enough to go over the hook, there were six packets there (plenty, I hoped) and to top it all, they were half price! These beads were meant for me. It was fate.

Um.... except that frosted beads in exactly the right shade of blue don't show up that well! This is a very close-up picture: from a foot away you can't tell there are beads there at all. Rats!! I am not going to spend hours beading a shawl with invisible beads! They don't even catch the light, they're frosted! (why this didn't occur to me in the shop, don't ask me. I may have been sale-blinded).

Fortunately, these were also half price, and I bought them just because I liked the colour. It's not a perfect match, but then they do actually show up, so that's a good thing! Now tell me, have I got all of the bad knitting karma out of the way for this shawl? Will it be easy from now on? Please? Pretty please?

Too many projects, not enough time!

There's a nice dotty bag, bigger than the last one, which is basically finished, except that I'd like to bind the raw edges inside (I'm not usually this obsessive, but hey, sometimes you've just got to...)
So I went to Fibrefest yesterday with my Mum, and there were one or two little things that followed me home...

This is called a 'Zauberball' (Magic/wizard ball) and is imported from Germany. Hadn't ever seen these before, and they looked interesting. I say 'they', as this one came too (I didn't want one to be lonely!). The one above is plied, the one below singles. We'll see how they knit up as socks.

This is some 50/50 wool/silk laceweight called 'Gaia' in the 'Baroque' colourway, from yarndamour. I bought it to finally knit the Aeolian shawl, which I've been both eager and terrified to make since it appeared this Spring. I will finally make this gorgeous shawl. Soon. When I've psyched myself up a bit.

This ball of grey felted tweed came home with me to join a jumper's worth of the blue in the stash, where it will sit and dream of becoming one of these. Yummy. Love this pattern.

These 2 skeins of Coldharbour Mill's own waterwheel-spun Merino aran wool came with me to add to those already in the stash, which are in the process of being made into a raglan jumper very loosely based on francis revisited.

Yeah, there's a bit more of this now, but the neck is too wide, so it's going to be ripped.

The noro stripy scarf is now probably a bit over 2/3 done, and seems to be none the worse for a bit of drunken knitting in the dark last night at a friend's barbequeue!

The big question is... am I obliged to finish this before starting something else?

This afternoon I snapped Elsie out in the garden, having escaped from the chicken run. I let the others out for a run with her. It seemd only fair. The garden is a bit jungle-y at the mo, but never mind, there are still nice flowers peeping through, and a ton of tomatoes if they ever ripen.

New box bag, new jumper

Made another box bag today, to a slightly larger scale: 16" x 22". I'm trying to home in on the right size for a new wash kit bag for my hubby. He's requested that it be sort of waterproof, just to stop things from being able to leak on his clothes when he stays away on business, so I'll have to line it with PVC or something. I'll figure that out when I've experimented a bit more. Pictures of today's bag will have to wait, I haven't downloaded them yet.
Today I also swatched for and cast on (and ripped out, twice) the francis revisited jumper - now the funny thing is that this is very definitely a cowl-necked jumper - that's the main feature of quite a plain (though stylish) garment. I will be knitting it without the cowl. Yes, I know. I'm odd. I saw Carrieoke's half-finished version here, and just loved it as it is - a simple raglan jumper, with quite a wide neck. I'll be doing the neck edge in seed stitch to match the other edges. I'll be knitting it in some aran-weight merino wool I got from the discount basket at Coldharbour Mill, where I'll be off again tomorrow, for Fibrefest! I'll be getting some more of the yarn, as I have no idea how much I have, but probably not enough.

Box bag

I've been seeing neat little box bags in funky fabrics all over the net for months, and yesterday I got curious and googled 'box bag tutorial'. That led me to this brilliant tutorial by Drago[knit]fly. This morning, I decided to use this Amy Butler fabric I had left over (from making a sunhat to wear on holiday - you can see me wearing it in the lake in yesterday's pic if you look really closely...). I used some dark blue cotton from the scrap bag for the lining, medium weight interfacing and a 12" navy zip, all from the stash. This bag cost me nothing at all! Yay! Isn't it fab?
I followed Drago[knit]fly's instructions quite closely, with a couple of mods suggested by Twenty acres and NO sheep here. These mods make it a lot easier, especially the corners, I think. This way they are easy and all the same size and straight! They almost certainly wouldn't have been otherwise, with my sewing. I can be a bit slapdash...

Just the right size for a medium-sized knitting project: my stripy noro scarf.

Speaking of the scarf, this is how it looked this afternoon / evening. The pink section turned out ok, hubby swears he can see the stripes right through. I can't quite, but don't mind it. The colours seem to be mirroring the beginning almost perfectly now, so I'm intrigued to see what they will do after I get past the orange/green section that's coming up next. Three things are surprising me about this scarf:

1. It's a really simple repetitive knit, but I'm somehow not bored.

2. It's on quite short DPNs and continually nearly falling off the ends, but this does not annoy me and I have even tried long needles and changed back to DPNs.

3. It's in rib and I'm still knitting it! My darling hubby would be the first to tell you that I hate knitting rib! I will only do it under sufferance, and get quite narky doing socks for him as he likes a good depth of ribbing - after the first half-inch I'll be asking 'Is this enough yet?' every other row, when we both know he wants about 3 inches!

Bigfoot sighting

Whilst on holiday in the south of France, I saw Bigfoot. I saw him quite often in fact, he hung around the tent with us, came to the beach, swam in the lake and even bought us croissants for breakfast... Yes, ok, the Bigfoot I'm referring to here isn't the missing link, he's my brother. He does have huge feet though... I can personally testify to this, having knitted him a pair of socks whilst on holiday. See? How long?
I can't even block them, my sock blockers aren't big enough!
I didn't do much knitting on holiday, just these and one red fish (for the neglected festive fish blanket). I was reading or playing cards most evenings and odd moments in between all the cycling, swimming, canoeing and eating cheese. Ok, so there was more of the latter than of all the other three, but never mind. Still a lot more exercise than usual. I'm going to try to use the bikes more now we're back, having decided not to bury them at the back of the shed behind the lawn mower again. They were just a nuisance to get out there. Got to tidy the garage to make room for them though.
Since returning to Blighty I have been contemplating casting on for various jumpers, but so far all that's made it onto the needles is a scarf: Two-row alternating stripes of Noro Kureyon sock in 1x1 rib. I've seen loads of them out there, and always liked the striping. I had an odd ball of this and don't think it would hold up to sock wear for more than a couple of hours, being thin singles. I cast on 40 stitches on a 3.75mm circular, but wasn't happy with the look of the fabric (messy, loose gauge) and the fact that both colours were going to line up and turn to green together.
Meh. I broke the yarn and started again on 3mm DPNs (I have no idea why DPNs, but I'm happy with it) and it's going much better....

Lovely stripes! And a much bouncier, firmer gauge. The pink section may lose stripe definition between the purple and the pink, but I think it'll be ok. The colours will change soon, and I'm fed up with fighting to keep them different. I'm going with the flow. A bit.

Willow likes it, but wonders why it's not cat-blanket sized, like the other Noro knitting?

That's better! A kitty can stretch out on this..... if she hasn't got bored and wandered off to torment chickens, that is...

Holiday!

Where have I been?

I've been here....

...doing some of this....

...and a bit of this...

...and even some of this. Legs are still pasty white though.

We took this crazy boy with us. He may be regretting this photo.
These guys got their own holiday at Mum's... (she hid behind the tree from the camera)

...and Willow went along to keep them in order.

Spoilt kitty! All these toys (and the huge tub of catnip) are new! Mum's a big softie... and Willow was strangely reluctant to come home... can't think why!

Knitting content tomorrow. Promise.