Not Dead!

Despite appearances, the blogathon didn't kill me. Hoorah! It did wipe me out for a bit there, though, and then I had to spend some time catching up on the things I'd got behind on while I was thus wiped out. But anyway, now I'm back and feelin' fiiiiine.

So!

And I raised a fantastic $199.66, which translates to £98.64 in real money, all thanks to my wonderful sponsors:
- Heather
- Ally
- Noxie
- Ramona
- Mum
- Carla
- hellolovely
- Anonymous
- Ambermoggie
- talesfromtheplain
- Liz
THANK YOU, guys. And thank you to my excellent charity, MDF, who sent me a lovely email and have invited me to submit a piece for the charity's quarterly magazine about the blogathon and why I chose them as my charity. I'll be sending that off to them shortly, so you never know, I might even get in print. :-)

I'd like to highlight a few of the posts I made during the 'thon - the ones that got the actual content, really. It was amazingly hard to write what feel like 'full' posts to me for every one, because it just takes me too long! So there ended up just being a relatively small number of more meaty ones, interspersed by briefer comments. Anyway, the ones I wanted to point out are:
- Bipolar Disorder, and MDF: The Bipolar Organisation
- Fetching So Far
- Excitement! I Won!
- Forest Canopy
- My First Socks
- Loopylou and the Multitude of HP Scarves

I guess that's all on the 'thon until another year, then. Maybe next year, maybe not! It's been three years since I did it last, so I'm not going to commit myself now. But I certainly do intend to do it again... and try to remember next time not to do pretty much a full day's activity *before* I start, next time...

And now we return you to our non-regularly scheduled knitting posts!

And....

I'm done!

Thank you and GoodNIGHT.

(Extra speshul thanks to my sponsors and Lisa - *HUGS*)

Loopylou and the Multitude of HP Scarves!

You might notice, if you look in my photo album (especially if you're in the Finished Objects/2004 folder) that there seem to be a few Harry Potter style scarves knocking around. Well, yes. There are. There's one in my WIP pile right now, too. See, it's not exactly a hard pattern to figure out, even for a new knitter (it's just maths and a bit of applied logic, after all). So I did just that, in a couple of variations, and for both styles that have been in the films. And then, just for fun, I worked out a wristband and a bag and socks, and... you get the picture. Or, you don't get the pictures of those because I don't think I have them uploaded here yet. Erm.

Anyway, once I'd produced a scarf for myself, other people started going "Hey, if I gave you the money, could you...?" So I did. I also made some as presents, and a couple for a local costume shop where I was friendly with the owners. I'm not quite sure now how many I have made, and for whom. It's mainly been Gryffindor and Slytherin colours, though. I'm probably going to write up my version of this pattern and put it online, even though I know there are others out there already. But hey, one more won't hurt, and I'll most likely be putting the other bits and bobs (wristwarmers etc) out as well if I do go for it.

Anyway! Have some more pictures of my *fabulous* creations, darlings:

Wow.

I can't believe that there's only an hour to go, suddenly! Less in fact: 40 minutes! I have to make at least one more post with 'proper' content before I go. Eeeek....

Just going through my photo album

Trying to decide which utterly stunning knitted object I'll ramble at you about next ;-) Any preferences, anybody? Anything you can't figure out what the hell I was thinking when I went and made it?

Meanwhile, have a podcast rec: Stash and Burn is put out by Jenny and Nicole, and frankly, it's great. Funny, quirky, engaging, and fuuuuull of pepperyfibrey goodness, it's very small and neat... no, wait, that's a Finger of Fudge. But my point remains! Plus, it's all about busting your stash (or trying to), which is something that I really need to get onboard with. So, if you're not already doing so, you should go and sign up, and download those back-episodes too! Listen, laugh, and embrace your knitting fantasy life.

Purple Opal Magic Socks

Ahh, my first socks! Aren't they fab? I don't remember exactly why I decided to knit a pair of socks - whether it was just the next thing I wanted to try, or if I saw the yarn and fancied having a crack at it. I do know that my friend Char was with me, and she's a sock knitter. So she definitely had some hand in the proceedings! *g*

Anyway, we were in the Battle Wool Shop (an L-ishYS) and with help from Char and the lovely ladies who work there, I picked out this yarn and a set of 2.5mm DPNs, and was given Sue Morgan's Simple Sock Pattern pattern free with the purchase. I went for this because, well, there wasn't a lot of sock yarn available - what there was was either completely plain, or the Opal or Regia self-striping. Or at least, I think so - there might have been some more expensive yarn there at the time, but I wasn't looking for that - I wanted to go for something that would stand up to my novice sock-knitter efforts! Anyhow, I know they do have Lana Grossa and Trekking in the shop now as well as Opal and Regia, and I'm not 100% sure what else. If they have handpainted lines, it might live with the other expensive yarn on the other side of the shop, and I haven't looked over there recently - too much temptation!

But I digress. So there I was with my new sock making supplies.... but I can't remember now if I cast on straight away or not. The picture on your right was taken in November 04, at any rate.

I knitted that first sock in fits and starts. The leg took quite a long time, though I was enjoying watching the pattern manifest itself. Then I blitzed the heel and foot gusset overnight in late December (pic below). The foot, again, took quite a while, and once I'd completed that toe, I have a feeling that the whole project hibernated for some time before I cast on for its pair.

Again, the second one was done in bits and pieces, but then in winter 05/06 I picked it up again and worked steadily until I was done! Whee!

More pictures are under the link!

Another sponsor

Huge thanks to Ambermoggie! :-D

And that's from the fairly-amber Xandermoggie too:

A veritable meme

Oh dear, I'm sorry. I would say that you can see my posting quality plummet before your very eyes here, but it hasn't been all that til now anyway. ;-)

However. Found via Lisa:

You Are a Life Blogger!

Your blog is the story of your life - a living diary. If it happens, you blog it. And make it as entertaining as possible.

On the phone to Ally now. Hi Ally!!

ps

Q - Are we nearly there yet?

A - Yes!

Whoops

Gah! Dozed of on the sofa. Right, let me try and make up a post...

Atishoo!

Bleurgh, allergies. brb

Is it just me...

... or are we all feeling rather like this now?

This half hour I will be mostly...

... digging out photos. And stuff. Why did I think this was a better plan, again?

[Listening to: Show 14 - The slow clothes mov - David Reidy - Sticks & String Podcast]

Decision!

Having made the single-pair-of-hands realisation, I've just had a bright idea. I shall still keep working on Fetching in bits as I feel like it, but for the main part I'm going to focus on my previous FOs, and talk about those. Pretty much everything is from before I was using this for a knitting blog, so it'd be kind of cool to give them posts of their own.

Up first, My First Socks! (Probably. Unless I go for my first actual knitted things.)

[Listening to: Show 14 - The slow clothes mov - David Reidy - Sticks & String Podcast]

It's that time.

I have brain freeze... I'm just too tired.

Going to knit some more Fetching. Or shall I actually start one of those squares? Hmmm....

[Listening to: Show 14 - The slow clothes mov - David Reidy - Sticks & String Podcast]

You know what?

I think I kind of underestimated how difficult it was going to be to knit and blog at the same time. Note to self for the future: I only have one pair of hands.

What was I thinking? *headdesk*

You know what else? I sent an email to the PoshKnitters list yesterday about my 'thoning... and it hasn't turned up in the group that I can see. Huh. I think I might try again. Hopefully everyone won't end up getting the same thing twice. Because I am shameless in my quest for sponsors! Even when there is only... er... Wow, just over 6 hours to go. I think I had better send the mail again. You never know, after all, and the list mod said it was fine with her.

(And in case it works this time and anyone comes by - hi PoshKnitters! :-) )

[Listening to: Show 14 - The slow clothes mov - David Reidy - Sticks & String Podcast]

Forest Canopy

I can't quite remember if I've mentioned this here yet, but I have cast on my Forest Canopy Shawl. This isn't the best photo - it wasn't good light and for some reason I couldn't get the focus. Maybe I should have zoomed in or something? Anyway! What you can see here is about half of the set-up section of the lace pattern. I've now completed the set-up section and I'm about to start the first body repeat.

Project stats:
Pattern: Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl by Susan Lawrence.
Yarn: Posh Yarn Eva 4-ply (55% silk, 45% cashmere) in Tuscany.
Needles: 4.5mm (bamboo straights for now, to change to a circular when it gets wider)

I'm actually kind of confused about this pattern. Not about the knitting of it as such - the pattern looks straightforward enough in terms of knitting the stitches. But it's the construction of the shawl that's stumping me. It's not making sense in my head. You see, the pattern describes it as a "top-down" shawl. To me, the top of a shawl is the widest part, the edge that goes across the shoulders. Am I mistaken? Because the shawl starts out with... um... I've forgotten how many, but only a few stitches for the cast on, and then you increase from there. That would indicate to me that I'm knitting from the bottom point upwards.

I would have just assumed I'd got confused with what top-down meant. But. When you've knitted the desired number of pattern repeats, it then tells you to knit the border along the bottom edge and follow the directions to get the scalloped cast-off, etc etc. It doesn't say anything about casting off the top edge and picking up along the bottom. Yet, if I'm starting with a pointy bit..... argh! Perhaps I'm missing something vital about the shape of the shawl because I haven't yet started knitting the main pattern. I know I'm not knitting from a corner, either, because I've got the centre stitch right where it should be for knitting directly up or down.

Can anyone give me any clues? Anyone? Help?

New sponsor!

Thank you so much, Anonymous Sponsor! Are you sure you don't want to at least say hi? I really appreciate your pledge, regardless :-)

THANK YOU!

Oh! Excitement! I won!!!

Duh, I know what I wanted to say! I AM A WINNA! And stuff like that. To my huge excitement, I won the prize draw that Kris ran on Bockstark Knits for a handmade sushi pattern project bag (kind of ironic, since fish makes me ill, but I'm quite happy to look at the stuff, after all! *g*) and a skein of German indie dyed sock yarn. Bweeeee!

I am a happy bunny. Tired. But happy!

Um, um..

What?

*faceplants*

My energy went away again. I've completely lost track of what I was doing. Heeeeeeeelp!

Who am I again?

(You know, I think part of the problem here was that I started at 2pm... so unlike the bloggers who started right after they woke up, I'd already been running around flathunting with my brother's g/f for several hours. Why didn't I think of that beforehand and have a lie in? D'oh!)

And relax

I feel a lot better now I'm eating. It's the wrong time of day completely to have a meal, so I haven't eaten all of it yet (I did go for the quorn sausages, new potatoes and baby sweetcorn - yuuuuuuuuum), but I'm feeling more energised. I think moving around cooking and so on helped a lot as well.

So anyway, now I'm still nibbling at that and listening to this podcast - it's definitely one I'd recommend if you don't already listen and are into knitting casts. The link is over on the right in my Blogroll under Podcasts (funny that).

Soggy Moggy

You know how I said earlier that I'd left the cat out in the rain, and was going to be in trouble? Well...

Cooking...

The sausages are under the grill, and the potatoes on the hob. Mmmmm, foooooooooooood.

Photos in a bit, honest!

Food!

I'm going to grill me some (quorn) sausages. And.... maybe do some potatoes and baby sweetcorn. That would be nummy.

I really want to sleep right now. Got to keep moving!!

Fetching so far

Fetching is progressing nicely, and it's an absolute pleasure to knit. I have found the cables a bit more fiddly that others that I've done in the past, for some reason, but it is a nice straightforward little pattern, and is coming out beautifully. And as you can see, the Posh Yarn Sophia 6-ply (in Mute) looks utterly scrummy.

FYI, the project stats are:
Pattern: Fetching by Cheryl Niamath, from Knitty (Summer 06).
Yarn: Posh Yarn Sophia 6-ply (100% cashmere) in Mute.
Needles: Set of 5 4mm DPNs.

I'm now, by the way, further up than shown in this pic - I'll take another one when I'm significantly more along with it.

But for right now... I think I'm going to stretch my legs around the flat a bit, and get something to eat. Which reminds me, I wanted to make a shout-out to my lovely encouraging monitor, Lisa - thank you for your support! And I wish I could go and get some fresh air, but it's 'orrible and rainy, and 3am, so I guess that'll have to wait til the morning. Food first, some stretches, then a shower. That'll do me for now.