Okay,...I think this time I've got it!

The right day, I mean!

I'd have done this yesterday but we went to Perth so Hubbie could do some swimming in a proper sized pool undercover instead of in a 2/3 sized pool subject to the nightly temperature plummet that only the wheatbelt can deliver! Not quite cold enough for ice but, By Gee! it feel like it!!

A productive day was had by all. We got to hang out with the sons, eldest cheerfully and carefree as usual and youngest burdened with the stupidity and foolishness of the world in general...but specifically his older brother. These two board together if you can believe it! I was forced to note as we sat down to eat lunch, youngest glowering at sniggering eldest that there were times I could not believe that they came from the same womb! More sniggering from oldest, faint smirk from deep and thoughtful.

I have a tooth in the front giving me hell at the moment making biting anything before chewing it nearly impossible and consequently didn't eat enough lunch to match up with my insulin (I've been an insulin dependant diabetic since I was 14...so it's been a while!) and energy expenditure. Meaning I became uncomfortably low in blood sugars while at a shopping complex and had to be herded to a table at a cafe while hubbie bought a hot chocolate for me, and the boys made sure I didn't fall over before I sat down. I hate feeling helpless! And stupid!

SO! anyway, since I'm a disaster on legs stumbling from crisis to crisis, on to the things I'm actually good at. CRAFT

So far these are the beanie's I've knit with the combined yarn I made up with my various op-shop finds. The first one I knit with 3mm needles. For the white yarn you see in the second beanie this was way too small. The fabric I knitted up was like a slat of wood! So I unravelled it and the next beanie I knit after the first one is the blue and black one and I used 3.75mm needles. This particular yarn combination feels lovely, cosy and warm! But I wanted to use up the white/grey stuff and since it could only be classed as chunky, I went up another needle size. Even knitting with 4mm needles the beanie is quite firm, but not so much that it's uncomfortable. It's also bigger than the proceeding two and youngest son has already put his hand up to give this a home...once the weather obliges of course.

Now I'm knitting another beanie using the same chunky white/grey yarn but on 4.5mm needles. Using another chunky yarn I have in my stash so we'll see how big this one turns out. These are all using the same beanie pattern I got for free on Ravelry. Garter Stripe Beanie by Terhi Montonen. It's absolutely fabulous and makes such a neat folded beanie when you're not wearing it.

And of course, the ubiquitous Monty Python cross stitch. Still plugging along with the three headed giant (I think that's what it is anyway.) I am enjoying putting the stitching together but I'm not sure what I'm going to do when it's done. I guess I'll worry about that when I get there. After this guy there are two other characters on this line and then I can start the next line! Onward and upwards! 

(Or downwards, really, in regard to the cross stitch anyway!)

The weather is finally beginning to turn around here. The nights are definitely cooler. We can even sleep under a doona at the moment without feeling smothered! And the farmers around our district are starting to get the paddocks ready for the next crop. They first sign of this is usually burn-offs of last years chaff and trash out in the paddocks. As we were driving back from Perth last night it looked like the place had been invaded by small dragons. Ribbons of fire running down the lines of chaff up and down the paddocks. Really impressive looking but I couldn't capture how awesome it looked on my phone. But this was the best I could get. 

I love fire, it's colour,and warmth. Mind you, only tame fire. Wild fire is entirely different beastie and not at all nice. Every summer we're reminded of that here in Australia.  But at pre-seeding time, fire is just another one of the tools of the farmers. Useful but only under certain circumstances.

But some experiments don't work, so...

You just have to bite the bullet and move on.

Speaking of my last post...

...I looked at it some more and decided...I really didn't like it...so I...

...unravelled the whole thing down to one starter square! See? There it is, right at the bottom. And THAT became my new starting point!

I decided not to tinker with this and just knit it the way it is supposed to go, generally speaking.

I used 5 different sock-yarn colours from Moda Vera Noir 4 ply range and decided to do a square 9 squares high and 9 in width. That should get a nice shuffle between the different variegated yarns involved and as I ran out of one colour I'd just bring in a new one from my collection. There is one yarn that isn't Noir, a pretty Patons Patonyle I had a bit left over of, so I thought I may as well use up the last little bit. It fits in quite well!

  

But watching it grow is SO absorbing! I'm enjoying this much more than my first attempt. All the different colours and patterns are really quite nice with no big blocks of colour sounding any discordant notes. And it's very relaxing.

Both a nice mindless knit while at the same time not boring at all! I find myself having to make myself put it down! To stop telling myself, "Oh, I'll put this down when I get to this point in the decreases...oh look! I've nearly finished the square, I may as well finish it...Oh, I'll just pick up the stitches I need for the next square so It's ready when I..."

You get the idea?

Here I've got 4 squares width...

...And now 5 squares...

Doesn't it look lovely? I love running my hands over it and feeling the lines running diagonally across it because of the decreases down the middle. 

And now 6 squares wide. I've actually started the seventh row now and the end result of a cushion is looking pretty good! And although I love this way of join-as-you-go construction, I'm not sure I'm so in love with it that I'd want to commit to a whole blanket like this!

But all in all, I think the sacrifice of my first idea was a valid choice. This is now something I like to look at and touch. Not something tinged with a little regret.

Have you had to change an idea of something you thought would really work when it wasn't developing as you'd imagined? Any craft has that propensity! Tell me about it and share!

See you all later!

Dx 

A new Experiment!

Domino Knitting!

I've heard of this and there was no particular reason I decided to have a go at it besides the fact that I have a few balls of left-over sock yarn in my wool room and the plain truth that the other thing I was knitting was in a heavier gauge of yarn and I liked the idea of something delicate...like 4 ply. I mean, it's not like I have any lack of sources of sock yarn to fall back on!

Anyway, I found a really helpful tutorial on Pinterest on a blog called Loose Threads all about how to do it to produce beauties like this!

But I didn't like the jagged edge. I wanted a straight edge. So after reading about half the instructions and quickly flicking through the pictures I grabbed the top ball of left-overs, a 2mm circular needle (a really short one!) and dove in!

First I knit the four on the right and worked out how the placements of the decreases worked. I really like the way the slip 2, knit 1, pass 2slsts over knit st make a really neat line in the centre. But I still had a fair amount of yarn left so I decided I'd make a square twice the size to sit next to the smaller ones. I quite liked how that looked and decided to surround this rectangle as I went around.

I mean, how hard could it be?

See? Isn't it pretty? And a nice predictable pattern developing too. Always a large square beside the 4 smaller squares.  I really quite liked this kind of joining as you go along and with the fine yarn it's not too hot to do while it's uncomfortable warm either!  Okay, moving on...

All going along really well although it's hard to know whether to try and match the colours better but I decided in the end to just go with whatever I grabbed next.

And right here! Right here I suddenly realized I may have outsmarted myself. I had discovered earlier that there had to be an order in how you knitted each square or else the line down the middle could end up pointing the wrong way but I didn't thing it would really be a problem...until I started trying to go down the right side of the centre rectangle. To do the little squares with the line going in the right direction I had to some how join THREE sides instead of the usual two.

Pause...Think...Grind Teeth! (buggerbuggerbugger!!)

So I decided that I'd just have to come up with a way of doing that. Not that it was difficult, just a little fiddly! And now I know why there aren't any examples of small and large squares in a straight edged blanket like this!

So, using a single double point 2mm needle I picked up 15sts on the third side and every back row I knit together the first st on the working needle with one from the third side. It works pretty well. It's not quite as smooth a join as the normal one used through out the pattern but it functions and for that I'm prepared to be thankful!

Of course all this is still in progress and my aim at the moment is to finish the large square I'm doing and make a cushion cover with it. And then I'll sit back and contemplate the wonders now at my fingertips of greater and larger things... Like maybe a sock yarn blanket myself. Yes, that might be nice...

Well, one day maybe anyway :)

Anyone else ever experimented with domino or modular knitting?

See you later!
Dx

The Blanket of Knitting Growth

Finished at last!
This has been the longest project I can remember! I cast on the first time (yes, the first time, I'll explain in a minute.) on April 2012 and I finally finished just the other day, 10 August 2014. Wow. Over two years!

I'd already collected a huge amount of op shop yarn by 2012 and was beginning to wonder what to do with the various odd balls I was accumulating and I found the lovely blanket pattern Ten-Stitch Blanket by Frankie Brown which answered my desire to use lots of different yarns but no seaming together endless squares. I pooled together all the candidates for the project and began!

So far, so good but then I discovered the neat join from Smoking Hot Needles and instead of unravelling what I'd knitted so far and starting again with the nice join, I thought I'd get away with just starting the different join method and continue knitting. I worked doggedly on and this is what I got...

The whole thing had started to twist in a weird way and...I hated it! So with great reluctance (and a certain amount of kicking myself for not doing this when I first found the new join method) I unravelled the whole thing. All of it!

Then I balled up all the yarn again, graded it into colour blocks (sort of) and added more yarn that I'd missed before. It made up quite a nice palette.

So I started again! And it was already nicer, knitting up flatter and straighter than the first attempt.

I used up a lot of different weights of yarn. The thinner stuff I doubled (and sometimes tripled), the novelty yarns I used with a strand of solid yarn and just kept going round and round. It became that project that I had on the side when I wanted something mindless to knit between more structured knitting.

It continued as we moved from Walpole in the middle of the forest to Carnamah in the northern wheat belt.

There were long periods where I didn't touch this, where it sat in my wool room while I was occupied with other projects, usually smaller ones since as I continued knitting the blanket it became difficult holding it all on my lap. It was a great project to do during the winter though!

But since our latest move to Kellerberrin it had been living in a bag in a cupboard in my wool room and I finally took pity on it. I'd managed to go through all the balls of stash I'd assigned to this project and was up to the creams and white yarns. I had always planned to do the final round in black so I dragged the whole thing out and buckled down to finally finish it.

It actually didn't take that long which just shows how lazy I've been putting it off for so long. But the blanket was really heavy and cumbersome to work on now it's so big. But here it is, totally covering the floor of my wool room between the bed and the shelves. FINISHED!!

I used a huge number of yarns and some of them interpreted the ten-stitch pattern really differently to others. I wanted a better picture of the whole thing but the best I could do was once I'd washed it and hung it out to dry...the only way it was going to be blocked at all! I did toy with the idea of a tarp pegged out in the backyard, yarn threaded through the outer edge of the blanket and heaps of tent pegs but I gave that up as far more work than I was prepared to invest in!

 I am really, REALLY pleased with the final blanket. It is heavy, I'll confess but it feels so wonderful when you run your hands over it. So many textures! It's warm and cosy too! All I have to do now is tidy up the yarn ends at the back and then it is totally done. Now I'm finished I feel a bit flat. It's a bit of a let down when such a long time project is finally completed. But also pretty good too :)

Well, I must stop gazing obsessively at the thing and get on with my life....

....and start another project...Of course! :)

See ya later!

Dx

The Journey towards Tights!

I've wanted a pair of nice warm tights ever since we moved to this part of the Wheatbelt and finding a nice serviceable pair has been well nigh impossible. So I thought "Hey! I have an obscene number of books and patterns and an equally obscene collection of yarn. What ho! I will make a pair of my own!"

As with most great ideas, it didn't turn out anywhere near as easy as that!

Despite having at least one pattern for tights on hand I decided to try a pattern I'd bought for leggings and put a foot on it. That way it becomes a pair of tights, yes?

I decided to use up all the random greys that I had on hand. 4 balls of a 50g per ball crepe yarn (acrylic) and 6 balls of a 20g per ball acrylic yarn. This was my starting palette. I decided to knit both feet (and therefore legs) at the same time so off I went. I got as far as the calf section and then had a really good look at them...

I don't like it. The blocks of different grey look revolting! So I unravelled it down to the foot and started again this time alternating the yarns each row so it knit up a really fine stripe. A lot better looking.

So, off I go again!

When I got up to the knees I decided to do a little rib stitch just behind the knee to try and reduce sagging. As you see the faux seam is centred through the strip. This little point will be important later. I didn't realize it until I'd finished the whole leg!

Okay, both legs finished and now to join the crotch stitches...oh, wait...something doesn't match up here. Oh crap!

Note to self: When the pattern describes the faux seam as in INseam they probably mean it is a seam on the INSIDE of the leg, like on leggings, not the centre back as with socks...OH. CRAP!

 So I refolded them and lay them out and found that the feet seemed to be pointing in different directions but I could eventually make some sense out of it. To be honest I even chopped off one of the feet and tried to reattach it facing the way I thought it should go but ended up re-grafting it the way it was in the first place which was the way it was supposed to be anyway. I have no photos of that. Still feel like a goof for doing it!

So now wonderful rib strips are actually positioned on the sides of my knees...Great.

By now I was beginning to get pipped off with the whole project and just wanted to finish it but I had to keep threading the body of the tights onto waste yarn so I could try them on. Not nearly as much fun as it sounds! To knit this beastie I had to roll up the legs and pin them together or it looked like I was being attacked by a very aggressive grey octopus! So unravelling everything to try it on wasn't something I wanted to do terribly often. So I guessed by figuring out the gauge and the height I thought I needed and just kept knitting till I got there. And I was SO pleased to finally get there.

I sewed the waistband, threaded the elastic and put these suckers on. They fit! Or rather they weren't too tight. Nope, not tight which had been my primary fear...walk around admiring legs...not tight...hoik up waist as the crotch sags a bit low...lovely and warm too...pull up legs and waist again...might have to shorten the elastic band on the waist...cosy and warm...knees and ankles keep sagging...wish I had a full length mirror...mmm....

Yes. I have to confess the truth to myself. After 28 days knitting...these are too big! Aaarghhhh!!! Not a huge amount, if it was by a big amount it'd probably be easier to alter the fit but these are only a bit too big. The crotch sags like on an ill-fitting pair of stockings and the legs are slightly too long for my legs. Botheration!!

But it's winter and at night, bitterly cold so whether I look like the saggy baggy elephant or not, for the time being I will wear these babies and feel proud of myself for having finished it at all!

Yay me!!

See ya later!

Dx

And the boxes come out again!

Yes! We are on the move again! I mean, hey! we've been in this town now for nearly 2 and a half years!! Crikey! Got to love the Police Service. But Hubbie and I are looking forward to a new place, a part of W.A. that we've never lived in (I've never even seen it!) and new experiences so we're fairly philosophical about things.
But!...That means I have to pack up my wool and sewing room!
Horrors!!
Actually I could just leave it to the removalist to do but the disbelieving looks on their faces when they're faced with three walls of shelving FILLED with yarn makes me uncomfortable so I do it for them.

...They should thank me!
There's a bit of wool still on the shelves in the top picture. I ran out of boxes. But that's okay. When I get another big box like all of the others I can pack up my variegated yarns, novelty yarns, feltable yarns and then probably open the basket box behind the packing boxes in the corning which are full of my cone yarns and pack them too. Do you think we're done?
Oh, how little you know me!
No, still in the cupboard is my small hoard of spinnable rovings and slivers as well as some unprocessed fleece, not to mention my embroidery frames, collection of small cross stitch patterns, boxes of small balls of yarn and just to top it all off, my huge box holding my wedding dress, hooped petticoat and veil.
There!
Now I'm done!
(Well, excluding the magazines and knitting needles but hey, you get the idea!)
So what is my point behind all this?
I don't like packing up my yarn...
...what if I need some of it?
Seriously! I get anxious packing up this vast plethora of yarns and fibres with the misguided thought that somehow a purpose will suddenly materialise for some miscellaneous ball of yarn the minute I tape down the top of the box despite the fact that the last time I looked at that yarn was when I unpacked last time!!
So to try and assuage this miasma of anxiety I have kept some projects out just so I have a couple of projects going that I can vacillate between and distract myself from the trauma of the packing process.
Unfortunately I have completed one already.
The Alpaca Warmers are a pattern I've had on my list to do for ages and since I thought they'd be complicated enough (they have a lace pattern on the back of the hand after all!) I thought I'd give them a go. I decided to use a lovely yarn I have by Moda Vera simply called Angora blend. And they aren't kidding! The angora content of this yarn caused me nothing but problems but not of a knitting nature. All the fine fibre filaments that come off the yarn as you knit make my nose feel itchy the whole time! But when you touch the gloves it makes it all worth while. They are SO SOFT!!!
I chose to knit these both at the same time. The only time this was a problem was the couple of times I had to unravel a couple of rows to fix a problem but it wasn't too difficult. I just decanted the mitt I needed onto DPN's and then knit them back onto the circular needle when I fixed them.

 These took longer than I thought they would but the lace wasn't actually that hard. I just kept losing my place on the pattern because I was trying to read but it really got complicated when I got to the lace pattern up near the fingers. You have to actually look at the mitts to realize where in the lace pattern to start each row. But well worth it!

All done, off the circular!...and now excuse me while I blow my nose again because I can feel the residual effect of tiny fibres!!!

Oh wait. Pointless vanity shots!

So there is one of my distraction projects done. Bother. I wonder what I'll do now....

...that's not going to be a problem, let me tell you! Later :)

Today is My Birthday!!

And I've had a lovely day! My presents all came by post so I've been extra good and saved opening them for today...and that was hard since I knew what two of them were! I've been mooning over this box for over a week!

So, after trying to sleep in and failing thanks to sore shoulders and leg I gave up and started opening my pressies!

The first one - from my Mum!

She loves me and understands my addictions so she got me an Australian Galah cross stitch kit, two balls of novelty yarn from Spotlight that feel and look wonderful, a memory and charms necklace and a memo book with a pen. Really looking forward to making something nice with the yarn!

The second one is from Me, really. I have this pattern in one of my magazines, The Knitter with a wonderful pattern for a fair isle vest in lovely colours. So I ordered the yarn kit from Jamieson and Smith - Shetland Wool Brokers Ltd.

I'm kind of nervous now. The pattern has all the traditional attributes of fair isle, the stranded colour-work, corrugated rib and steeks and everything! But I'm going to put it aside until I've finished everything else I've got going. Even the cross stitching might have to take a back seat! But I'm really excited to actually do a honest-to-goodness Shetland Island item with the proper wool!

And lastly, another present to myself.

I've always loved the Anne of Green Gables collection but I've never had a chance to read all through the series in the proper order. I only had the first book and I've read the others at different times I think through library loans but I really wanted the whole set so I could go through the journey properly...and now I can! They look so cute and their in their own box and everything!

Everyone I loved rang and wished me happy birthday, and Hubbie bought me chips for lunch (in a little town like this, you're grateful for any take away food you can get and I love chips!) and all in all it was a lovely pleasant day. I am so blessed and days like today remind me that I have so much to thank God and those he's placed around me for. Sigh...

Oh well, another year passes by and time marches on. See you all later :)