Ski trip preparation

Passport? Check. Ski boots? Check. Skis? Check. Warm clothes? Check. Wash kit? Check.
Selection of silly fleece hats? Weeeeellll... maybe just one more...
This hat is brought to you by Patchway Community College and Dr Seuss. I just hope the kids don't spend all week calling him 'the Prat in the Hat'. Although I don't think he'd care...
To see a selection of previous ski hats, click here.
Despite what you may think, since I am continually making him look ridiculous in public, I do love my brother. And he does ask for the hats. Honest.

Very late hat, just in time.

This hat (please excuse the rubbish self-timer photo) is both very very late and just in the nick of time. Contradiction? What do you mean?
I promised to knit a friend of my brother's a ski hat with earflaps, before xmas. What with deadlines and parting and birthdays, I'd put it off and put it off... Now it's finally done, just in time for him to wear it on a ski trip on Saturday. So it will still be of some use in the snow, although not the snow we had here!

Fleece lining. Fiddly, but worth it. All hand-stitched, for stretch without distortion.

The hat before lining and without plaits. Next time I'll start the pattern lower down, but it's ok.

Now I can start on the brother's birthday prezzie... His birthday's tomorrow, but I won't see him till Friday - talk about cutting it fine!

A mishmash of wooly things

The grey mystery shawl has suffered a terrible fate... the lace pattern wasn't working out wonderfully well with the increases (particularly when I did more chatting than concentrating at knit and natter)... so the lace section got frogged. It is being reknitted with a simpler plan, but there's not much interesting to see yet. More to come later.
Yesterday, a lovely friend of mine came to lunch with her lovely fiancé, and brought me two fleeces! There was a label on the bags saying 'free to a good home'. I think I'm a good home.
Washing fleece gets tiresome, but I'm still always gobsmacked by the results...

Unwashed fleece left, washed on right. Same fleece, from same sheep, just soaked in some hot soapy water for 20 minutes and rinsed. Amazing, n'est-ce pas?

Haven't decided what to do with it all yet, but the dark fleece (there was a dark one and a white one) isn't looking like it's spinning/knitting quality. Huge amounts of VM, short fibres, coarse fibres and general cack. Once washed and run through the drumcarder 3 times (huge amount of mess!) it seems to felt quite nicely, so I think it's destined to be felted slipper soles. That way it doesn't need to be soft or pretty. I think a lot of people would probably give up and chuck this one, but I can't see wool go to waste! The white looks like a nice fleece to spin though... no idea what it is, but I may try a bit of detective work later on.

Another random piece of this week: I've always loved the little bunnies knitted by Julie at Little Cotton Rabbits, and yesterday I caved and bought some rabbit-coloured baby alpaca wool and her pattern for a bunny egg cosy. I couldn't put it down! By midnight, I had this cute little friend:

Isn't she gorgeous? I have already had several requests for one (or more!) for Easter prezzies...

The flas photo is a bit washed out, her jumper is actually two shades of pink, and she fits over an egg beautifully. A home-grown, free-range egg, of course!

Lastly, this morning I realised that a hat I've been putting off since before xmas needs to be done by the end of the week, so I put on a burst of speed! It's the snowflake hat from Newton's Knitting, but I've added a pattern repeat to make it bigger (recipient has a big head!) and I'll be adding earflaps and a fleece lining to keep him warm on a ski slope. Hopefully I'll finish this tomorrow.

Last week kind of got knocked sideways by an interview (I didn't get the job), and another application. This week I hope to have a bit more time to think and knit. This may seem like a lot of knitting, but it's all been since Friday afternoon! One more week until half term...

Warm feet, warm wool, warm quilt

The crayons socks with the eye-of-partridge sole are finished, and on the feet. Hopefully they will keep my tootsies warm tomorrow, standing in a field in Wales all day.

Aren't they beautiful? I especially love the little dots of color on the sole created by the stitch pattern. The idea behind this is to make the soles more hard-wearing: my socks never wear out on the heels, always on the sole. Usually under the ball of my foot - maybe I tiptoe everywhere and don't notice!
There has also been more Tomten knitting. I've finished the first sleeve and started the second, but it doesn't look very different from yesterday, so no picture today. Instead, some new acquisitions: (bought with xmas money from the M-I-L... thankyou!)

Grey Shetland top from Spinning Weal in Clevedon. I had 100g of black Shetland for xmas from my lovely hubby, and it was heavenly to spin. I have visions of a lovely chunky fair isle jacket in natural sheep colours. I have more black and some white on order.

The purple cotton fabric in the background also came home with me, along with some cotton batting. They are to complete a second funky baby quilt, just like Hardy's. Here's the top, very similar, using up the extra squares of fabric that I cut out:

I just love mad multi-coloured things. Can you tell?

Tomten resurrected

My exceedingly chunky Tomten made in Lamb's pride bulky, which weighs a ton but will be super warm, has come out of the abandoned pile and gained a foot of sleeve in the last two nights. It's almost certainly the cold weather plus the prospect of standing in a field all day Sunday that's driving me... Not that it will be finished in time, no way. Not even if I knitted constantly from now until Sunday morning without sleep. It's only about half done, if you consider the other sleeve, a hood and a front band. My arms are aching from holding the weight of it, and most of it's resting in my lap as I knit!
Tomten, with one sleeve about three-quarters done. Still not sure about the hood. Want one for warmth, but don't want to look totally stupid. On the other hand, if it's cold enough to wear this, I probably won't care how I look. I'm even planning on lining it with fleece at some point, but I'll have to decide which is the right side first. I love both, and at the moment it's reversible.

Mumiversary

So, the mystery shawl was going brilliantly, right up until the point where it wasn't. I need to rip a few rows and rethink. So it's in disgrace at the moment, until I work up the patience to rip back and re-knit.

Meanwhile, I keep trying to phone my Mum to wish her Happy Birthday, but she's out! I dunno, officially an OAP and out painting the town red.... Well, actually at sewing group, but that's not as amusing an image.

Happy Birthday, Mum!!

Designing something easy...

...is surprisingly hard!!
This fabulous variegated grey (which isn't as dark as this pic, but does have that fabulous shine thanks to being 20% bamboo) is my test-knit of a knotty problem: Design a pretty little shawlette pattern that's simple enough for my Mum to have a go at. She really loved the Ishbel and I think she'd really like another 7 or 8 in lots of different colours. Since I'd like to knit other things as well, I'm having a go at a simple pattern. I'm talking really simple - I want it to be elegant, but I'm trying for one pattern row with only 4 stitches: knit, purl, YO and SK2P. That way, she may get through it. Possibly. There's still her first and only sock sitting without a toe in her knitting basket...
Watch this space!

Finished!!

It was touch-and-go for a while there, but at 00:20hrs this morning, I cast off Mum's Ishbel. It was quickly soaked and pinned out to block dry, and then this morning hastily unpinned and wrapped. This picture is the most accurate colour of it (on my screen at least). I think I may be making yet another! It's such a useful size and shape... Mum's also asked me to try and simplify the pattern for her, so that she can have a go. I'm going to try to chart the edge pattern only onto the middle stockinette section... that way it's only one pattern row to remember!

I think she liked it... it was round her neck within seconds of unwrapping! This is my Mum laughing in disbelief that her children could be mad enough to really cover a cake with 60 candles... it was quite warm!

Happy Birthday, Mum!

Catching up!

There has been knitting at breaktime. At lunchtime. This evening. And a lot yesterday evening, in front of various DVDs to keep me from drifting off. And at this point, I am only half a chart behind my original plan. Four rows. Trouble is, at this point, that's four quite long rows. The upside? The brother isn't arriving until lunch tomorrow, so I may get some done in the morning, and then he's driving, so more will be done in the car, on the way to Dorset and back to meet new baby and deliver the quilt. That's probably another 3.5 hours of knitting time, maybe 4. The downside? It's really growing on me... I love the colour. I'm going to find it quite tricky to give away....

An almost total lack of progress.

So, the plan to do one chart each day this week, and a couple on Saturday, isn't going so well. I have a whole host of reasons, none of which is going to get it knitted any faster.
Monday, as you know, there was some limited progress: three-quarters of chart A. But I was tired, and not feeling great, so I didn't get any more done.
Tuesday, I was still tired, (not sleeping very well at the moment) and I needed to plan a lesson and I lay on the sofa, too tired to knit at all. It doesn't happen often! So then I was a chart and a quarter behind.
Wednesday, I started reading a book which was a bit too gripping, and that's all I did - read. An entire novel, and quite a thick one, from the time I got home at 4pm, to the time I fell asleep (having finished the book) at 10.30pm. Still no knitting done. Ooops.
Tonight I need to catch up . So that's the rest of chart A (two rows), chart B, then A and B again. And that still leaves me quite a lot to manage over the weekned, seeing as it needs to be finished and blocked and dry by Sunday lunchtime. Oh dear.
Better get knitting! Progress update later!

Time check!

OK, so for reasons unspecified I want to finish this Ishbel this week. That's going to take some doing, with no snow days in the offing and a house that desperately needs a spring clean before my Mother comes round on Sunday... Technically the brother is also coming, on Saturday, but he doesn't count. He's messy too. I can even rope him in to clean if I need to. Probably. He kept hoovering at Christmas, but maybe that was a comment on the general cleanliness of my house...
Anyway, Ishbel this evening got three-quarters of chart A knitted. It would have been more, but I was shattered after being left in charge of somebody else's class from hell and had to crawl under a duvet and have a little kip and 2 paracetamol to recuperate. Knitting time diminished, but sanity partly restored. More of the same class tomorrow, unfortunately. I may need vodka next time.
The point is this. I have until Sunday. I am knitting charts A,B,A,B,A,C,D,E. If I knit one whole chart each night (and catch up two rows tomorrow at lunchtime, maybe?) then that just leaves me C, D and E for Saturday. I have a long car journey on Saturday, and the brother will be driving. He hardly ever lets me drive... I try not to take this as a comment on my driving. (To be fair, the one time I drove his car a couple of miles I went up a big kerb, and he was in the back... but I was on holiday and eating an ice cream at the time... I'm sure this has nothing to do with it.) Chart E is only one row. One chart on the way to Dorset, and one on the way back..? Maybe. That still leaves the cast-off row (I remember that taking over an hour). I'll also have to block it.
Mission impossible? Maybe, just maybe...... I've bitten off more than I can knit.

A baby quilt and another ishbel

I knew my Mother was quite taken by my purple Ishbel scarf when she twice swiped it from around my neck to try it on. When I accidentally left it behind at her house on Saturday, however, I knew that matters had become desperate. I arrived home to see an email gloating that Mother was going to wear it to her WI meeting and her sewing group! Desperate times call for desperate measures.....
...another Ishbel. I'm not giving up on getting the purple one back, but I've got a cold neck! The first half of the pattern makes for good car knitting, so this was cast on this morning and is now ready for the lace section. As before, I'm doing small stockinette and large lace (charts A,B,A,B,A,C,D,E). Maybe I can finish it this week!

And two evenings' sewing will give you a beautiful little cot quilt for a new arrival... I'm hoping to meet him on Saturday! I hate washed-out pastels, I don't think they're terribly practical for babies. Babies leak. Luckily new Mum and Dad also like bright colours. I hope they'll love this!

Reinforced sole socks

No FOs today, but these socks have finally come out of the 'abandoned' pile to be finished. These will be my handbag knitting now till they're done, shouldn't take long as I have a sock and a half already.
I'm trying a new trick on these: the eye of partridge slip stitch pattern that is often used on heels to reinforce them. Except I'm using it on the sole, which is where my socks always wear out. I was a bit worried it might feel bumpy underfoot and the slip stitch pattern does draw in more than the plain stockinette in both length and width, so the sock seems to curl downwards when knitting, but on the foot it is very smooth and comfortable, with a thicker, almost cushioned, sole. The tighter fabric at the bottom hugs the arch of the foot almost as if specially designed for this purpose. Very pleased with them so far, although it is a bit slower to knit. I'll have to wait and see if they wear well!

Cold weather makes for warm feet

For anyone outside the UK, I'd just like to mention it's been quite snowy here. That said, to almost anyone outside the UK, and even to those in the north of England or in Scotland, this is a pathetic amount of snow. About 4 inches, topped up over a few days so it stayed nice and white and fluffy on the garden and slippery on the roads. What would amuse anyone from colder climes is just how rubbish the south of England is at dealing with snow. Probably Wales, too, but I haven't been there this last week or so. We have no snowploughs, because we hardly ever get more than a half inch of snow in a single winter. We hae about a week's worth of salt and grit which quickly gets dubbed 'dangerously low stocks' by the media and the AA (Automobile Association, not Alcoholics Anonymous) . Soon after that, roads get closed, people panic-buy anything they can find and refuse to leave their homes. School was closed two days last week, and we've had two days where we were sent home early, too. It's funny, really, and I've just spent the time knitting and making sure the chickens have plenty of food and water that hasn't frozen. The kitty isn't keen on going out, but she does funny little jumps through the cold white stuff when she experiences a call of nature and the rest of the time, just sleeps contentedly wherever is the warmest place in the house.

This evening I finished these booties, made from the magic slipper pattern (adapted to include 6 rows of stockinette cuff). They're for a new arrival belonging to some friends of mine, wh I'm hoping to meet soon. I've sent him one pair in the post already, along with a baby surprise jacket. Winter babies need wool.

Not quite disappeared...

Still here, just gone a bit quiet. Still battling on with everything, and knitting like mad. A few FOs in a minute. First, you need to go here and read about this. If you're not convinced after that second one, I doubt I can say anything to pursuade you, but really, even when I've had the worst year of my life, I can still appreciate how lucky I really am. I live in a big house and I never go hungry and I can put the heating on when it gets cold, and I have an obscene amount of wool, although I haven't bought any for months. (I'm going to have to knit for quite a while to make a dent in this stash!) I can find a few quid. And so can you.

Now, knitting!!

There are a few things on the needles not making much progress, but I'd like to start on a high with some finished socks which I'm going to find it extremely hard to part with... I love the colours of course, as it's a rainbow, but they are for my stepdad's birthday, so they are firmly spoken for. And they're not my size.

Fabulous, though, aren't they? Schoppel Wolle crazy zauberball.

I started an Ishbel shawlette in noro silk garden sock a while back, but never really got along with it... the edging seemed very tight in the non-stretchy noro singles, and I got confused with tyhe charts and had to rip... It went into hibernation. Then a skein of gorgeous variegated purple cashmere and merino sock yarn appeared, courtesy of the socktopus sock club that I joined last year, and it just seemed too glorious for socks. Ishbel mark two was knit up very quickly over Christmas - lots of car knitting and hours of sitting on the sofa digesting too much food! It's a fabulous shawlette that I wear often as a bandana-style scarf, and turns a gappy v-necked jumper into something far cosier. I love it!

Ishbel, full span. The edging was pointier after blocking, but has curled up a bit in wearing. I don't mind, I still love it.

Slightly blurry closeup of lace pattern. Fabulous colour!

More FOs and UFOs to follow. I'll try not to forget the blog again. Promise.