A done deal.. grr..

I just spent ages composing a long blog post about my latest FO and stuff. Then the bleedin' browser crashed. Aaaarrrgghhh! SO here's the alternative version.

I've been working on a top-down seamless cardigan I designed using some stash yarn (Patons Super Sport Aran).

It's finished.

Youngest DD loves it.

That's it. Thank you and goodnight.

Stash explosion

Saturday afternoon took me to my Knit Chat group at Beatties, and some cunning assistant had piled a LOT of yarn onto the 70% off clearance display, which of course I had to walk past. Oh dear. Once I’d bought half of it that is. ;-)

I ended up with 1.9 kilos(!!) of Sirdar Denim Ultra – 700g in Sea Spray for me, 600g in Blackberry Crush for youngest DD, and 600g in Blue Wave for eldest DD.

Thankfully there weren’t any more of the colourful shades on the stand, otherwise I may have been in danger of clothing the entire family in the stuff.

This huge mound of lovely yarn is destined to become 3 snuggly warm chunky cardigans – hopefully long hooded ones for the girls, and a regular one for me. The yarn is a real soft acrylic/cotton/wool blend, machine washable, and cost me £21.66 for the whole humungous bagful rather than the £72.20 that it would have cost full price. What knitter can resist a bargain like that?!

It absolutely flies off the 10mm needles – 9 stitches and 12 rows to 4inches. I know because I’m too weak-willed to resist and I’ve finished the back of mine already.. ;-)

I have a new sweater!

Yes, Phoenix is finished. Just in time for autumn – although most of August has already felt like autumn this year.

These pics were kindly taken by my 7yo daughter. That flash sure highlights the underwear! Phoenix has a crocheted front, knitted sleeves and back, and crochet edging all around.

The crochet edging shows up nicely along the back hem and sleeves.

I used 450g of Rowan Summer Tweed, and designed the pattern using my Knitware Sweaters program. It's based on an old shop-bought favourite that I wore until it literally droppped apart.

I'm quite looking forward to some weather cool enough to need to wear it now!

And so to fill the hole in the stash, here is today's parcel - my first ever Noro stash. I bought it from this ebay seller and got super-fast shipping and a great price. The project for the yarn is secret atm though!

Music for the soul

Being an avid listener of Cast On, I have to thank Brenda Dayne for introducing me to the fine music of Adrina Thorpe. I kept listening to the clips on the Podsafe music network and was compelled to buy the “Elusive” CD with some of my birthday money.

I couldn’t find it anywhere here in the UK so I bought it a few days ago from CDBaby in the USA. After great communication and easy PayPal payment, it arrived yesterday and I LOVE it.

The track “Round the Bend” makes me shiver every time I hear it. Fab voice. Have a listen!

Life Laundry..

Firstly thanks for more belated birthday wishes - much appreciated. :-) Also it's good to hear that some of you will be going to the NEC on the same day as me, so hopefully we'll get to meet up.

General decluttering is what our household is about right now. The autumnal weather has obviously confused our brains and we’ve tumbled into spring-clean mode! DH is overhauling the extension/office, I’ve been scouring the house and garage for items for the car boot sale, and I even got the girls to sort through their sprawling mounds of toys and groaning dressing-up box.

I did this year’s final (for me) car boot sale last Sunday – no knitting done, but I had a great time chatting to my fab almost-SIL – well she will be my SIL when they finally get around to getting married. I sold a boxful of old knitting magazines, books, and patterns, and my lower-priority stash is going on ebay shortly. The remaining few bags of unsold items will be whisked away to the charity shop tomorrow, and we can get on with renewing and restyling our home.

I bought a fab new duvet set for our soon-to-be-new bedroom, but we still haven’t decided which blinds would be best for our 8ft-wide windows. We're thinking of verticals, but I'm a bit worried about them not cutting out enough light as we want to go for a neutral colour - that way I can easily change the room colours with the duvet covers and accessories. Can anyone share any experiences on vertical blinds in bedrooms or a good supplier?

I don’t fancy crocheting any window dressings, but I am tempted to crochet some boxes similar to the ones Ikea are selling currently.

One of my other WIPs involving crochet – Phoenix – is taking shape nicely. I’ve sewn in the knitted sleeves using a coordinating mercerised cotton, as the Rowan Summer Tweed was just not up to being pulled so enthusiastically without breaking constantly.

The neckline is edged in shrimp/crab stitch – i.e. reverse double crochet.

The sleeve and side seams are next, then I’ll decide on what kind of crochet edging they should have. I think I’ll repeat the crab stitch around the sleeve hems and then work something deeper on the body.

When it’s finished I’m planning on giving it a good soak in my Tenestar Silk Wash to soften it up, and then hopefully wear it lots! Right.. where did I put that Chibi..?

Party aftermath

Thanks so much to all of you who took the time to leave birthday wishes for me - they are very much appreciated. I did have a wonderful birthday; some great pressies, a lie-in, a relaxing lunch with my DH and daughters, then a great evening party with friends and family sharing champagne and lots of good food!

No doubt the refuse collectors get a good idea of what's going on in people's lives from their job; it was obvious from the excess of empty bottles and cans what had happened the night before at our house!

No pics this time as we're having computer problems - but trusty DH is on the case and normal service will be resumed soon. :-)

I did receive some gorgeous yarn as a pressie from my lovely friend Fiona - but you'll have to wait for pics. I also received a great Amazon gift voucher from my brother and his family - which I immediately spent on a dyeing book and a sock book. Can't wait for those to arrive.

The other gifts were either chocolate, wine, more champagne, or money. The chocolates have almost gone, the alcohol is being enjoyed more slowly, and the money is earmarked for more yarn of course! I may be visiting the Knitting and Stitching Show at the NEC on Friday 15th September - are any of you thinking of going along on that day?

So that's that. Being 40 seems to be ok so far. I get to have a toy-boy for a while again too - DH isn't 40 until next January.. ;-)

4..0..Here we go..

Cheers!

FO frenzy

I've been trying to post a new entry here for a while but events seemed to be conspiring against me.. Anyway I'm here to show off a FO frenzy..

First my new ribby cotton blend socks, which I've been wearing all today - they're real comfy and haven't fallen down once. I used the basic rib pattern from Spun magazine with a ball of Regia Cotton Surf yarn - and I have 35g left!

Next is my own attempt at a little crochet box, using some 3-ply cotton I dyed a while back with 2 colours of Dylon Cold Dye. The box is rather floppy, so I'm in the process of making a liner for it with felt-covered plastic canvas. Not strictly finished, but near enuogh.

Then there's a geat quick-fix oddment project - a beaded crochet hairband. I used a strand each of 4-ply wool and 4-ply alpaca; very quick and easy, and eldest DD loes it.

Finally a new poncho for youngest DD - another quick and easy one done in garter stitch with chunky yarn doubled up - a great stash-buster!

I'm going to slink away quietly now - I've been nursing a migraine for 2 days and although I can see ok now, I still feel badly hung-over. Hopefully it won't last too much longer.

Too.. hot..

It's 11pm. The latest recorded temperature in Shropshire (not far from here) is 29 degrees C. Am I knitting? Not on your nelly! I'm lying in front of the AC unit until I stop melting.

All in a day's relaxing

Phew - what a hot week! I'm not complaining though - we have air-conditioning in our office at work, and also a unit in our bedroom to ease the sleeping temperatures down a little. Other than the grass being the colour of parchment and almost the same texture - oh and needing to water my tomato plants 3 or 4 times a day - it's glorious. :-)

Today I've been busy relaxing at home, the highlights being:
9:30am - shop online at the Next sale although the bedding I wanted has already gone - darn!
11am - do sale shopping in the city centre and have a relaxing pampering hour at the hairdressers
12:30am - buy a bargain ball of Rowan 4-ply Soft for 50p as it doesn't have a ball band
9:30pm - wind more hand-dyed yarn into cakes ready for knitting up
10pm - finally get around to grafting the toe on my first ribby sock

A pretty good day overall!

What happened?

I seem to have lost a week and during the time warp there was a WIP explosion, that’s what’s happened. (No pics as Blogger is having a stubborn moment.) I’ve suddenly gone from 3 WIPs to 8! It must be something to do with the phase of the moon, surely. Maybe if I catalogue them here it’ll persuade me to finish something off. Here goes:

1) Giotto sweater – to be seamed and have a deep crochet edging attached.
I know why this one is hanging around – I don’t like it. There, I’ve proclaimed it to the world. I adore this yarn, so it really upsets me to say that I don’t like the sweater. It should fit fine as I designed it for myself, but somehow it doesn’t seem quite right – the fabric seems a little too loose, and I’m not 100% keen on the armhole seaming. So should I frog it or finish it? Actually, I really like the Giotto design that appeared in “Knitting” magazine a few months back, but I don’t have the pattern atm..

2) Magic scarf – I’m officially docking this one until the Christmas knitting season is upon us again – around September onwards!

3) Phoenix – has had to rest whilst we were in Cornwall on holiday. I decided that it was too bulky a project to carry around with me, so it stayed at home. Nothing to stop me now though!

4) Fortune – is patiently waiting for me to arrive at an evening when I still have the energy to work out the placing of the buttons so that I can knit the buttonhole edging.

5) Garter poncho – was a “quick” project just waiting for the rest of that fringe edging..

6) Rainbow Poncho – probably about a third done, just need to plug away at this for youngest DD.

7) Tailored Jacket – a newbie born from a love of the look of the “Prepster Jacket” from the Stitch ‘n’ Bitch crochet book and a desire to use a cone of purple marl lambswool/silk mix yarn obtained from ebay many moons ago.

8) Ribby Cotton Socks – oops! Well I was still lacking that portable holiday project, so I had to cast on for my second pair of socks. I did intend to knit some toe-up socks next, but decided to stick with the method I know whilst away from the vast internet knowledge bank. I’m using a ball of Regia Cotton Surf yarn bought from Little Knits – it’s lovely and soft to knit with and the first sock fits great!

Oh - yes we did have a good holiday, thanks! It seems so long ago already.

We visited Land’s End (I’ve visited the Egyptian pyramids but never been to Land’s End before!) which was eerily quiet considering the number of people there. DH summed it up when he said that it was like the sea was sucking up all the noise. Amazing.

On the way back from there we stopped off at Penzance to make the obligatory yarn shop visit. Our wonderful satellite navigation system directed us on the shortest route – and so we ended up driving through part of a pedestrian shopping area - oops!

The chosen shop this time was Knit Wits in Penzance – a good selection of yarns and pleasant staff. I bought a ball of Opal Rainforest Chameleon as it couldn’t resist the colours when seeing them in real life.

There, enough. I'm off to do one of the endless list of tasks.

AOL

..as in Absent On Leave. We're off to Cornwall for a week with MIL & FIL to visit SIL & her family. I'm taking my knitting and crochet, so we'll see how much gets done. See you soon!

Mail from a dragon

I got a lovely little parcel in the post today from Dragon Yarns - but no stash enhancement this time. The service was extremely quick, and the items were well packaged.

First of all I bought this card, which I think is just lovely, and will do perfectly for any knitter's birthday.

Next up, a shadecard for Artesano Alpaca.

The colours are gorgeous and the yarn is beautifully soft, but I think I'm going off it. Y'see every time I stroke the yarn on the shadecard, I'm left with fluffy fibres all over my fingers. I really didn't expect it to shed that much.

Do you think the knitted up yarn would stop doing that after a couple of washes?

Finally the real reason for my order - a shadecard of the Dale Svale yarn.

This DK yarn really appeals to me purely because of it's composition - 50% cotton, 40% viscose, 10% silk - the perfect combination for my sensitive skin.

The actual yarn on the shadecard is not what I was expecting, but I do like it. The range of colours is impressive, and so is the price - £2.45 per 50g ball.

This may be on my birthday wishlist - unless I get too tempted before then of course..

Thirty Things

In celebration of Kerrie's 30th birthday and her generous HipKnits competition, here are my 30 things about me (I don't know if I'm too late, but never mind!):

1. I fell headfirst into an empty bath when I was a baby and split my lip open, then a couple of years later my face was bitten by a family dog.


2. I can't hold anything non-edible in my teeth for more than a few seconds without gagging, which I think is to do with a traumatic event in a previous life.


3. For my first term of being a student I ate only chocolate cake and vitamin tablets.


4. I was "encouraged" to join in and climb up open stairs to the top of the Beam Engine display on a school trip to Blists Hill in Shropshire - and have been terrified by vertigo ever since.


5. I adore food and used to joke that I should marry a chef - and quite by accident ended up doing just that.


6. A junior school headteacher once announced to the rest of my class that my handwriting was "first class rubbish" - which not surprisingly led to me having low self-confidence.


7. My favourite fragrances are pale in colour - vanilla, lemon, white musk; I also love the smell of freshly-mown grass, tomato plants, motorbikes and leather.


8. I knew the name I wanted for my daughter many years before I became a mum - but I have no idea where I got the name from.


9. I love Abba songs but they all remind me of my parents' divorce.


10. I am allergic to nickel, so I had to have a platinum wedding ring - ahh, shame...!


11. I never did the long cross-country runs at secondary school; they were scheduled every summer term but each year I was convalescing at home after surgery to have my ingrowing big toe nail removed.


12. I love to be tucked up cosy in bed at night and listen to the sound of rain falling on the roof.


13. I share my birthday with Princess Anne.


14. I talk to my house - usually when I go out and come back in, or if DH is away for a night. It's usually just in my head, as I'm looking around the place, but sometimes verbally, quietly, if I'm the last one out. Y'know just stuff like "Be safe, take care of us" etc. Well people talk to their cars, so why not my house?


15. I could never have married anyone who didn't get along well with my brother.


16. I said I'd never have a Xmas baby as their birthday gets "swallowed up" by Xmas - then my first daughter was born in mid December.


17. I used to hate the colour pink - now half of my clothing is various shades of pink.


18. I own only one pair of shoes, but numberous boots and mules; I have wide feet and find it incredibly hard to find comfortable non-granny shoes.


19. Bright red lipstick looks positively scary on me.


20. My first and best ever job was as a computer wargames programmer - but I've never been into playing computer games myself.


21. I was the princess in our primary school play of "George and the Dragon" and remember it to this day.


22. I have a bridge over six front upper teeth as two of my second teeth that were supposed to be there were completely missing.


23. I have big hair and so was known as Crystal Tipps at school.


24. I detest being outside in windy rainy weather. An umbrella is useless, the wind swirls my hair round into my face so I can't see a thing, than a couple of days later I get a cold. Yeuch!


25. I have bitten my nails ever since my parents split up when I was 10 years old. It never helped the situation but I still can't stop!


26. I can't get into bed without checking for spiders and wasps in there first. I don't check under the bed (too much yarn there!) but I have to lift up the duvet and pillows.


27. I couldn't be bothered to cook when I lived by myself so I would just empty a tin each of baked beans, sweetcorn, and tuna into a pan and warm it through; that would be 2 days meals. Now I love everything in the TV chef's cookbooks!


28. I got my DH into drinking Jack Daniels and coke - now he drinks it far more often than I do.


29. I smoked on and off for many years, but I now haven't had a cigarette since 31st January 2006.


30. I will be 40 this year and don't know whether to love it or loathe it! Does life really start at 40?

Happy Father's Day!

DH has had a good Father's Day I think. The girls woke him up this morning with a homemade card each and presented him with a bottle of Jack Daniels. We've been to his parents' place in the Clee Hills near Ludlow for a lovely lunch, and the girls have had great fun climbing trees there.

They have a fabulous garden, and I was entranced by this fabulous waterlily on their pond.

While we were there I worked on my youngest DD's second version of the crocheted Rainbow Poncho, to replace the one that was stolen (mutter.. mutter..). I think I may need to wear my sunglasses to work on it soon..

Finally on Friday I took a deep breath and started on the edging to Fortune - moss stitch over 5 stitches worked on from the stitches on a holder after the initial hem.

It's supposed to be sewn on afterwards, but that sounds positively torturous to me. Instead I'm knitting it on as I go, and it's looking fine.

I was pleasantly surprised as I managed to get the one half done in about 3 hours! Nearly there... so nearly there...

Colours everywhere

First of all many thanks to those of you who've left comments about my dyeing adventure. They are much appreciated!

I wanted to show you how the Skylime skein is knitting up.

I decided to go for an old classic pattern, and knit a Feather and Fan scarf with a garter stitch edging to show off those gorgeous colours. I think it's turning out just as I'd hoped.

I had great fun explaining it all to the ladies at the knitting session at La Tienda this morning! I took my yarn along and they all found it amazing as most of them don't have access to the Internet, and had not heard of Kool-Aid or ever tried dyeing their own yarn.

I've been focusing on the colours around me as I'd like to do more dyeing. Mother Nature seems to do a grand job of matching them together, especially at this time of year. These pics are from my garden this afternoon:

My wonderful thriving purple sage bush. I love those smoky purples and grey-greens together. The smell and taste are pretty cool too!

The lovely aliums with their rich yellow blooms amongst the contrasting green foliage.

I love this picture - not many colours, but yet so many different shades and shapes together. Can you tell I love the crammed-in overgrown cottage garden look?!

My peony - it always surprises me when it flowers as I never remember what it looks like. Just lovely. :-)

Clowning about with colour

Warning - this post is heavy on the photos! I have shrunk them down though so click on any one to see the full size version.

You see last Thursday I finally got around to dyeing my wool with the Kool-Aid I've had stashed away for several months. Y'know what? It was easy peasy and great fun! I've got more Kool-Aid on order already.. ;-)

Here's what happened:

Berry Shake
It was fun to see what colours resulted from the "magic" powders as it wasn't obvious. I had my Kool-Aid chart on hand to help with the initial selections though.



Pink Grapefruit
I did all the dyeing in my microwave, as you can probably tell from the copious amount of clingfilm used! Very quick and easy.



Skylime
The pipettes in the pictures were only really used for stirring the Kool-Aid. I poured it over the skeins after that.



A final shot of my 3 lovely skeins together:


My favourite has to be Skylime - the turquoise and lime green. It's gorgeous, and of course I've start to knit it up already.

Patterns to go

Blatant advertising follows:

I've started to sell my own patterns on ebay! I just have the one crochet bag pattern up at the moment, but I'll be adding more soon. Please - take a look!

Apothecary Blues

Why is it that..

• you go into a shop and there's nobody waiting to pay, but once you've chosen your items there's a queue six deep and only one assistant at the tills..


• while you wait (im)patiently a call goes out for more staff on the tills - and the extra staff appear just as you get to the front of the queue anyway..


• you pay, only to find that the fabulous special offer on your favourite brand that enticed you to stock up doesn't apply to the particular item you chose..

Thank goodness that doesn't happen in my LYS!

Round and round..

Spent a lovely lazy day in the sunshine with my girls today. They had an extra day off school and I'd booked it as leave from work - bliss!

I managed to get a little knitting done in the garden on Fortune's sleeve and I did intend to seam the right shoulder tonight but it just kinda didn't happen. Oh well. There's always tomorrow.

I did get to have a play with the niddy noddies on loan from my friend Fiona tonight.
I've never used a niddy noddy before, and had a 500g skein of what I'm guessing to be sock-weight wool to divide up into smaller skeins - with a view to dyeing them of course.

This was the progress when I was forced to take a break for a couple of reasons. Firstly my arms were getting very tired; if there's much of this to do in the future then DH can have a go at the magical contraption he's been planning in his head for me.

Secondly I found that after winding my second skein directly from the large skein on my swift I erm.. well.. I couldn't get it off the niddy noddy. It was too tight and I hadn't discovered that the one side was dipped lower to get the yarn off. Doh!

DH sorted it out for me of course. Don't worry Fiona, the niddy noddy is still intact.

Although the equipment is beautifully made, I'm finding the winding process a bit weird. It's not at all intuitive yet which way to move my arms to get the direction right, and I have to watch the whole thing. I'm hoping that will improve with practise!

Anyway since this learning experience, I've wound the remainder of the wool into centre-pull balls and I'll wind them onto the niddy noddy from there tomorrow night.

I really want to get dyeing now!

Must. Keep. Going.

Fortune
Here it is - the right front of Fortune, recovering from a good pressing on my lovely lilac flowered ironing board.

The second sleeve is just under half done, and I've reached THAT point. You know the one. The one which keeps prodding you on the shoulder and whispering in your ear that you've had enough of this project now and it really wouldn't matter if you went onto something else.

QUIET! I will finish this project soon. I have to admit that I have dabbled with a couple of other projects in the meantime, but you'll have to wait to hear about those.

Style
Did you notice that I've changed the font of my posts slightly as from the last one? Is it any easier on the eyes? I hope so - I've had enough of the small stuff for a while.

More goodies
When writing about our day out at the park in my last post, I omitted to tell you of my other lovely surprise. It arrived as I was piling the girls and all our required bits and pieces in the car before setting off, and I was amazed. It was a package that I'd ordered from Amazon on Wednesday and it arrived a mere 2 days later even though it was the free postage which is supposed to take longer - fab!

Wrapped in that cardboard envelope were these two lovelies:
My first ever Gordon Ramsey cookbook.

Although we do sit down together as a family to eat almost every day of the week, I was inspired to buy this from his articles in The Times Online which I read & drool over often (usually whilst at work!).

I find myself trying out his recipes as they seem "do-able". Do you know what I mean? I can't get to grips with recipes that use ingredients that I've never heard of let alone don't know where to buy, and he doesn't generally do this. I don't think so anyway.
I seem to be getting more and more into cooking - is this a sign of getting older?

Anyway the other book in my rapidly-delivered parcel was probably of more interest to you all:
Yes, a yarn dyeing book!

I've only had chance to have a quick glance through this, but it looks very interesting.

The girls go back to school next week, so hopefully I'll get chance to try out some of the techniques shown in here. Maybe I'll even show you the results.

Must go - I have another knitting podcast waiting for me.

Blink of an eye

What happened? It's been a whole week since I last posted and I don't know where it's gone. The girls have been on their half-term holiday from school so no knitting morning for me yesterday, but we had a lovely time together in the park today with friends and a picnic. With sunshine no less! Finally - I was beginning to feel very depressed with all the grey skies, rain, and cold temperatures.

On the way to the picnic we called in to a local charity shop to drop off many bags being cleared from our bedroom, and spotted some yarn:

I did leave some at the shop, honest!

I brought this lot home though; there are 4 balls of mercerised red cotton, 4 balls of red sock-weight yarn which is 60% wool and 4 balls of the same yarn in a dark blue.

That little lot only set me back £2.50 so how could I resist?

I don't have any pics of the Fortune cardigan, but the right front is finished and I'm on the second sleeve. Nearly finished!

I've been zooming along with the knitting whilst listening to my newly-discovered Cast-On podcasts (thanks for the link Fiona!). I'm working my way through them from the beginning, with me newly-acquired "bug" earphones jammed in my ears to connect me up to DH's mp3 player for the knitting chat. Just in time to save me from the World Cup.

Just one more thing - this evening my youngest DD was playing in the garden whilst eldest DD went to karate with DH.
I went into the kitchen to wash up, and DD zoomed in to me and played inside. I asked her if she'd finished playing with her "colossal palace" (her words!) which we had constructed from various garden chairs and blankets on the grass. She answered very matter-of-factly that no, she hadn't finished and was going to play with it again when I went back in the garden with her as she was frightened when I wasn't there with her.

She has a very vivid imagination currently, so that wasn't anything to worry about, but I just thought how amazing it is to be seen by my kids as such a reassuring figure. I worry about stuff all the time, so it's actually really great to know that I must be doing the right things to make my kids feel ok.

Lace it up baby!

A strange thing happened tonight. I sat down at 9:40pm to seam up the half of my Fortune cardigan that is knitted - and I wanted to do it. Yes, I wanted to get those seams laced up. I think I must be on a chocolate high.

You see, seaming at this point is vital. I've added an extra pattern repeat to the sleeves to try to accommodate my gibbon-length arms, and I wanted to see if it worked. You know what? It has!

See the safety pin army holding the arm in place and the lifeline carefully threaded through the sleeve just before the extra length was added? I'm not taking any chances with this baby.

I'd forgotten just how much knitting is involved in an adult size cardigan using 4mm needles - a lot! I am rather enjoying it though as the pattern has become rather second nature. I'm just using the charts and only occassionally referring to the written instructions, and it's working out real well.

I'm very impressed with the Jaeger Matchmaker merino yarn too - I can see why so many people love it, and (oh dear) they stock it at my LYS where I'm knitting every Thursday morning now..

Anyway, I'd better get rid of those pins and carry on seaming cuz it fits (so far, so good)! Yippee - time for a Jack Daniels and coke to celebrate!

Sometimes I worry..

I sent an email to somebody asking for a picture they mentioned.
I received a reply to my email from them asking for my email address..
Er.. ?

Flash the New Stash!

Yes, that's right, the yarn diet was suspended today. After 2 months, 2 weeks, and 1 day I finally succumbed to temptation whilst at the knitting group at my LYS "La Tienda" this morning.

Wanna see what I bought? Oh go on then, take a look..

Not a hugely impressive photo, but a lovely yarn. It's Jaeger Matchmaker in a variegated colourway. I've never seen this before, and apparently it wasn't produced for very long.

I spotted it last week, hiding on a low shelf and this morning I arrived there early enough to be able to get to it! There were just 5 balls, so I grabbed them and will probably make something for one of my daughters with it.



Wendy Melody - in a lovely fresh variegated blue colourway to make a change from the pinks and lilacs of late.

There is a bolero knitted in this yarn in the LYS and it looks lovely - another one that I spied last week and grabbed today.

I bought 8 balls to make something along the lines of the Peachy Bolero but with longer sleeves and maybe a tie front.

And finally - a few balls of bright acrylic Patons Fab yarn to crochet another poncho for youngest DD. This will replace the the last Rainbow poncho which was cruelly stolen whilst we were 10-pin bowling a few weeks back.

There were other yarns calling me too - but they'll have to wait at the LYS for a while longer yet.

BTW - many thanks for the lovely new name for my Summer Silk sweater. You'll see from the sidebar that "Phoenix" has now gone through the official name change procedures. :-)

Merino and silk

I have been totally engrossed in Fortune.

The back is done but as yet is unblocked.

See what I mean about the colour? I just can't get it consist or accurate on the photos!

I've now cast on for the first sleeve.

I'll do a front first, then the other sleeve, then the other front. I can't stand knitting two pieces exactly the same back to back!

Unfortunately the obsessive knitting together with wrestling with the lawnmower before the rain arrived left me with a very sore left wrist. I have to do something in the evening, otherwise I'd be biting my nails or eating non-stop, so I started the next project from my to-do list:

I'm calling her Summer Silk. She's an attempt at re-creating a much loved sweater I bought years ago, and wore until it literally fell apart. It had a crocheted front and the rest knitted.

I'm using a pack of Rowan Summer Tweed, which feels almost exactly the same as the original yarn. This time it's a lilac shade - the original was a dark beige.

The crocheting is actually quite hard on the hands as the yarn is stiff, but it should soften up with washing once complete, especially with the help of some silk wash which I'm hoping to buy soon.

So another new project, but I reckon I can do it without guilt as I only have 3 WIPs at the moment - must be a new record for me!

The best things in life

Thanks for all your lovely comments about Squishy. She's blushing gently whilst patiently awaiting her flight to her new life in Spain.

I'm rather gripped by my latest project - my Fortune cardigan from Rowan magazine number 20.

It's a Kim Hargreaves design which I'm knitting in Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK in the burgundy shade. Great colour, but really difficult to photograph accurately.

The design is excellent. It's a fitted cardigan with an all-over chevron pattern, and the shaping is very cleverly hidden in the changes of direction in the chevrons. It's very easy to knit and looks fab. Kim, that's neat!

I found a new local knitting club today; it runs every Thursday morning in a LYS called "La Tienda". I joined in for almost 2 hours and got almost up to the shoulders on Fortune. The other ladies there are lovely, we got coffee and biscuits, and of course a good browse through all the yarns. Also it's just round the corner from my brother's house, so I got to visit him and my gorgeous little 9-month-old niece James too!

The other great part of today was after I picked my girls up from school. The weather was still great, so we had a barbecue for tea - smoky bacon sausages, proper beefburgers, and sirloin steak from our local butcher, a watercress salad, plus lots of red & yellow pepper sticks, carrot sticks, and cucumber sticks to dip into the red pepper humous that I whizzed up in the food processor in literally 1 minute. Delicious!

A whole Squishy!

She's finished! Squishy (many thanks to Julie for such a fab and appropriate name!) is knitted and fringed and done. Must have been helped along by those good wishes sent to me by Mandella.

Here I am modelling her in the "Keep me warm honey" style.

When I just went outside for DH top take these pics, my eldest daughter spotted Squishy and breathed "Oh wow. That's beautiful." :-)

This is the "Look no hands" style.

I ended up using 230g (that's 598 metres) of the Fantazie ladder yarn I purchased from ebay last summer. I cast on 52 stitches on 10mm needles and knitted garter stitch until I'd used up 2 whole balls (200g = 520 metres) of the yarn.

If I were to knit another one, I would cast on 60 stitches to make it that little bit wider - this one's about 13 or 14 inches wide.

Last night I added the mega-fringe, which used another 30g of yarn. I really enjoyed doing this part - much to my surprise!

Now for the last bit - I have to wrap up my Squishy as she is intended for another. Ho hum. At least I think she'll be appreciated and enjoyed in her new life in Spain.

So... next?

Last night I picked up Fortune again. She's lovely but she may need to wait a while now, depending on the weather, as it's merino yarn being used. Watch this space for more distractions.. not least being a new crocheted poncho for youngest DD as hers was stolen as we were 10-pin bowling last weekend..

Just keep knitting..

.. just keep knitting, knitting, knitting...

Have you watched the film "Finding Nemo"? Yes? Well you know what I mean.

The knitting on this Fantazie Ladder Wrap is endless. I'm about 40g into the second 100g ball though (and at 260m per 100g that's not bad going!), so I can see progress being made.

I still have a moving target as far as the deadline is concerned. The relative's birthday is at the end of May, but they are coming over from Spain to visit us sometime within the next 2 - 4 weeks. The project has to be finished, complete with mega fringe, wrapped, and ready to give on that day. Whenever it is.

So wish me luck while I grip those chunky needles and knit like someone possessed..