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..

Snap happy

Ah - sunshine! How I love it. The girls played with the bubbles in the garden yesterday afternoon while I wandered around with the camera.

I really like this pic as the camera has focused on the nearest bubble with the sunlight glinting off it and my youngest looking very happy about it all. She adores bubbles.

I moved on to the flowers and wanted to share these two pics with you.

First a couple of tulips doing very well - and not yet been eaten by our resident grey squirrels as in previous years..

Also my favourite spring flower in our garden - the snakeshead fritillary. Just beautiful.

Yes, I've been knitting too. The ladder wrap is coming along quite quickly thanks to that birthday deadline. Nothing like a bit of pressure to keep you motivated.

Holiday aftermath

We’re back home. Yippee! We had a good break in lovely Wales, but I always love coming back to the comfort of our home. No pics – hopefully DH is going to buy me a good compact digital camera for my birthday this year so I’ll be able to snap away to my heart’s content when we’re away from home.

The weather on holiday was about 70% pants, but we made the most of the sunshine and went to the beach a couple of times. The kids had a thoroughly great time, mainly due to the facilities on the holiday park like the “Learn 2 Swim” lessons every lunchtime and a disco every evening.

I feel like we had a break as the girls were up late every night, which meant that they actually slept until around 8:30am every morning – utter bliss! I really felt quite energetic by the weekend – not usually how I would describe myself.

On the knitting front, I maintained the yarn diet with very little effort. I only actually saw one place selling yarn (in the Pound Shop of all places!), and that was nothing amazing.


I did manage to finish the Jaywalkers though. They’re fab, and fit beautifully. I adore the colours in the Opal Rainforest Flamingo yarn, and love how they’ve turned out with this chevron pattern.

That’s my first ever pair of socks completed!




I also started (several times) a very easy project. It’s a large rectangular wrap based on design B here for the Sirdar Firefly yarn. I’m using the taupe Fantasie ladder yarn I bought from ebay last June.
This is hopefully going to be a gift for a relative’s birthday – if I manage to finish it in time, which is why I’ve had to start it now. Actually I’d rather be working on my Fortune cardigan, but I’ll have to be patient.

It’s certainly not TV knitting though – you have to keep an eye on where those needles are sitting in the ladders. Better go and do some now.

Lent-along completed

Firstly thanks everyone for your kind words about the non-smoking - I can hardly believe it's been over 2 months now!

For those of you who asked about the Jaywalker yarn I'm using - it's Opal Rainforest Flamingo. I'm working on the heel gusset of the second sock, so hopefully I'll have my first ever pair of handknitted socks real soon!

As for the yarn storage, thanks again for your suggestions. Hopefully the cashflow situation is due to improve soon, so I will actually be able to purchase something more suitable in which to hoard my sizeable stash.

Finally for tonight, we have my last contender for the Lent-along - my version of Mrs Beeton wristwarmers:

The modelled photo - to show that they are really finished, ends darned in, etc!

Also the "reclining alone" photo to illustrate the delicate picot edge cast-off.

I love these. I used Cashsoft DK and Kidsilk Haze together with beads from Rowan and Hobbycraft. The wristwarmers feel luxuriously soft and warm, and everyone who sees them coos over them. The beads really add that finishing touch. Yet another great free pattern from Knitty!

I was inspired to finish the wristwarmers by our imminent holiday to New Quay in Wales next week. I love Wales, but I don't trust the weather, especially at this time of year. At least now I can have wrists wrapped in luxury, even if the rest of me is damp and shivering.

Taking stock

My eldest daughter has achieved her first swimming award – her 10m badge and certificate. She’s understandably very excited about it. Well done Connie!







You’ve no doubt noticed the new counter above; since adding my “no smoking” counter at the end of my blog I found that it’s a great source of encouragement. Hence the new one.

So why do I need encouraging NOT to buy yarn? Well I think this lot is pretty convincing:

1) I have no money in the yarn pot. Not even any loose change. Just some dust and an old paper clip. (Where do they come from?)

2) My knitting spreadsheet (sad aren't I?) informs me that I already have the required yarn for no less than 27 projects. Everything ranging from sweaters to socks; of which 26 projects are for me. Obviously I have other yarn too, it’s just not allocated to a project yet. A lot of it probably never will be.

3) It would be nice to actually make some of these planned items. Heck, I might even like them enough to wear them, which would be useful. Then when I’ve used up lots of stash I can buy lots of the latest yarns with a clear conscience.

4) We’re in the process of spring-cleaning-leading-to-doing-up-the-house and I’ve decided that I need new storage for my yarn. Maybe something that shrinks it to half it’s size so that I can squeeze it in somewhere inconspicuous. (I’d love to have it all on display but we don’t have the space. Who has?)

See what I mean? So, a yarn diet it is. How long do you reckon I’ll last? ;-)

BTW, if you have any comments about the best/worst type of yarn storage, I'd love to hear them. Is it ok to store yarn in those vacuum-shrink bags? Or in PVC ones? Or should it be in something more breathable like a canvas storage unit? I need ones that will fit under our bed - come on, shout up knitters!

Hopping along

Thanks for your kind comments about my Coral Crochet Cardigan. I've been basking in the glory of finally completing this project for the past week, but not without knitting anything else.

Look - my first ever sock is complete! I'm rather worried that such an enormous looking sock actually fits my foot so precisely..

I even grafted the toe - which I found very easy whilst carefully following these instructions. Thank you Knitty!

The second Jaywalker is on the needles - just starting the heel flap. Looks like I might need to finish them and wear them as it's still so darn cold. We awoke to snow this morning. I am not amused.

This was the sky at the front of our house around 7:50pm tonight - shepherd's delight? I just hope tomorrow's a little milder but I'm not holding my breath.

I really ought to get that other Mrs Beeton knitted up so I can take them on our hols to Wales next weekend. Looks like I might need them there.

Worth the wait

Finally, a mere 3 years and 1 month after starting my Coral Crochet Cardigan... it's finished! I've named it "Vintage" for obvious reasons.

The front.. showing off all the details..

The back.. showing off the great fit..

And the front again in closer detail..

This is my own design using my Knitware Sweaters program. I fudged a knitting pattern from it 3 years ago, but the program now does actually produce crochet patterns too!

I finished it off with an edging from a Harmony crochet book that I found in my local library, and crocheted some buttons in the same yarn.

I wore it today to the Beatties Knit Chat and it's really lovely to wear, although I did feel that I should have been wearing a hat and going to a wedding.. ;-)

Now to find a top that looks better with it..!

This means that none of my UFOs are more than 3 months old!!! Woohooo!