Enchilada Sunrise » FOs

Busy busy busy

Lou — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 21:32:26 +0000

I’ve been running around doing all-sorts this week. I’ve been at C House a few times, at the library (hi Henry!), at the gym (!!!), to KnitJam, and I’ve had a visitor this weekend – my friend Charlotte. Whew! And now I’m starting all over again.

I’m going to the gym with the bro and also sometimes with my upstairs neighbour. It’s definitely a good plan to have gym buddies. We’re planning to go to pilates, too. Should be fun!

In knitting news, I’ve finished my first project for 2011: the Snapdragon Tam for my sister-in-law:

Pattern: Snapdragon Tam by Ysolda Teague [Ravlink]
Yarn: Elle Family Favourites DK in Gold.
Needles: 4mm metal circulars.

I am pleased with it, and it was fun to knit, too :-)

FOs in 2010, Part 1

Lou — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 09:27:02 +0000

As I didn’t post all that much last month in the end, I thought I’d do a round up of last year’s finished projects now, before it gets too out of date. Some of these I’ve mentioned before, but I wanted to get some better pictures of one or two anyway. So, in order of finishing:

As Long As It’s Black
Pattern: That Chocolate’s Gone Straight To Your Ribs Hat by Leonie Connellan [Ravlink]
Yarn: Stylecraft Special DK in Black, and James C Brett Autumn Bliss in Dark Blue
Needles: 4mm metal – 40cm circulars and DPNs
A slightly belated Christmas present for the brother. A nice straightforward ribbed hat that he wears even though it’s got a stripe of blue in it! ;-)

Mum’s Christmas (’09) Mitts
Pattern: Basic Mitten Pattern by Ann Budd [Ravlink]
Yarn: Stylecraft Special DK in Claret
Needles: 3.75mm metal circulars
Another belated Christmas present, this time for Mum – she asked me for some mittens in the same pattern that I’d made for her charity shoebox, but I didn’t have time to get them done in time for Christmas itself. I did get them done in time for the snow, though!

Rocky Butte Socks
Pattern: Rocky Butte Socks by Elli Metz [Ravlink]
Yarn: The Yarn Yard Hug in Scrum
Needles: 3mm Addi bamboo circulars
I’d been wanting to make some thicker, squishier socks for a while – this pattern was a lovely quick knit and I like how it worked with the yarn.

Clapotis à la Toscana
Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert, from Knitty: Fall 04 [Ravlink]
Yarn: Posh Yarn Eva 4ply in Tuscany
Needles: 4.5mm Boye interchangeable circulars
I started this back in October ’07. I only knit as far as the first “straight” repeat before putting it down again. I finally picked it up this year and knit through it really quite quickly to the finish.

Fireworks Socks
Pattern: Slight modification on Timberline Toes by Lucy Neatby [Ravlink]
Yarn: The Yarn Yard Bonny in Oct 07 Club: Fireworks (& contrast red)
Needles: 2.5mm Brittany birch DPNs.
This is another project I started back in Oct ’07. I worked slowly on them a few rows at a time, as they were my “waiting rooms” project. When I hit the foot of the second sock this year, I sat down and knit through them to finish them off.

That’ll do for now – I’ll show of the rest of the finished projects for the year soon.

Belated Christmassy round-up

Lou — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 10:44:04 +0000

I never did talk about how Christmas was in the end, did I? So I shall inflict in upon the world now. I actually did get everything finished and ready that I needed to. All my online shopping arrived (whew!) even though the post was all over the place, I finished the present I was making for Mum, and I even made chocolate chip cookies with moderate success!

The scarf for Mum was the Branching Out pattern [Ravlink], and I knitted it in a lovely Merino / Tencel blend that I spun on the wheel – the first time I’ve knit with my own handspun. I just left it as a single, and it worked really well (imo, anyway!) and I like the way the colour repeats came out. Mum says she really likes it too, which is the main thing!

I also joined two Christmas swaps, one through the Limegreenjelly group, and one through Plurk. The post was / is still being less kind where those are concerned. It seems to have eaten the parcel from the latter altogether, but I have now had my LGJ parcel from Cal, and a fabulous one it is too:

Two braids of LGJ fibre (one Merino/Silk, one Merino, yum!), a beautiful skein of Posh Yarn Elinor, an Orange Blossom perfume stick which I think is from Lush, mini Green & Black’s choccy bars (om nom nom!), a set of Knit Pro interchangeable needle tips and a cable for them (which spookily I’ve been wanting for ages), and an adorable Lego keyring. :-D I just hope she likes her gifts from me as much as I do mine.

Travelling Woman shawl

Lou — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 10:01:11 +0000

Finally, belatedly, here are the pictures and info for my “Gap Year Travels” Travelling Woman shawl.

Pattern: Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante [Ravlink]
Yarn: The Yarn Yard Bonny in Byron Bay & Art Deco solid, and Wendy Sunbeam St. Ives 4ply Sock Wool in Dark Grey.
Needles: 4mm metal circulars.

And it’s done.

Lou — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 23:27:41 +0000

Hooray, I’ve finished my Gap Year Travels shawl. I cast off in a different colour, which was totally a design feature and not because I ran out of yarn twice (if you believe that, etc etc), ends are sewn in, and it’s currently awaiting blocking – I’m going to leave it pinned on the table overnight, I think. I do believe I’m quite pleased. Pictures tomorrow!

Late night blogging

Lou — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 23:53:31 +0000

Whoops… I’m really tired today, and I nearly forgot to post. Wouldn’t that have been a good start to NaBloPoMo. As it is I have no time to think up anything clever or interesting (as if there’s ever anything along those lines here!), so instead I shall post a photo of one of my recently completed knitting projects:

A pair of “handsocks”, aka fingerless mitts, for Mum. Her hands don’t get as painful if she keeps them warm, so these are really useful for that. They’ve completely stashbusted some of my left over sock yarn, so that’s good too.

Clap!

Lou — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 21:24:36 +0000

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve finished my Clapotis [Ravlink] at long long last – it’s only taken me nearly three years! Although to be fair, for most of that it was languishing in a bag with only the first section knitted.

So here are some photos of the finished object, anyway. I haven’t blocked it, as I like how it’s turned out as it is. It’s too warm to wear it at the moment, but as soon as the weather cools down, it’ll be in active service! Should make a change from wearing purple.

And talking of purple(-ish), I’ve been spinning away for the Tour de Fleece. More pictures from that tomorrow, I expect.

Z is for Zips

Lou — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:40:04 +0000

Even though I haven’t started sewing up the Menace jumper [Ravlink] yet, I’ve been thinking about the other Unfinished Object that’s been sitting around for ages and ages, and that’s my Chunky Zipped Jacket [Ravlink] which is knit from Sirdar Bigga yarn. The main thing that’s keeping me from finishing this is the zip, although I’m also not quite sure whether to sew the seams with the Bigga yarn (which is “Super Bulky” weight), or with a thinner yarn of the same colour. I do have a thinner yarn, and that would make the seams less bulky, I think. But would it show up or be less stable, too? I don’t know! Help! I also suspect that this might not be the best project to try attaching a zip to, when it’s the first time I’ve ever done that. Again, the bulkiness is an issue. What do I sew the zip on with? Thread or yarn? This stuff is hard. Time to get advice from wiser heads, I think. I’ll cart it along to KnitJam next week.

Otherwise, today has been more of a knitting day than a tidying up one, though I have got some of that done. But good news! I’ve finished my Clapotis [Ravlink] at long last. I still have to weave in the ends, and block it (probably… I might leave it, I haven’t decided yet) but otherwise I’m done. Woohoo! Pictures will be coming soon.

All Hands on Deck

Lou — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:59:35 +0000

I haven’t blogged much recently because I’ve been knitting. Which means I don’t have enough hands to type at the same time! I should at least be mostly done with the things I’m knitting as Christmas presents. Ahem. I might be completely done, who knows? I probably would have been fine, but Mum asked me for mittens which I then had to factor in… and it all went a little bit wonky. Not too much though.

Other than present knitting, I’ve finished my gloves (pictures soon), done a bit of spinning at the 1066 Spinners group, and of course have been Christmas shopping. There’s an open air ice rink in town for the festive season, so Jo and I are hoping to go down there at some point. Although it’s just started snowing today, so I spose it depends how bad that gets. I also did an hour of carolling at the local hospital last night with choir. I really love singing carols, so that was lots of fun. Even though I did have to stand in the front row where people can – oh no!!! – see me! Happily for my ridiculous stage fright, most people didn’t stop and stare: we were in the foyer, so the majority of the people just passed through.

Anyway, I’d better go and have dinner before KnitJam tonight. I’m sure there was something else I was planning to blog about, but I’m sure it’ll come back to me. If not, it probably wasn’t important!

41: A knitty post

Lou — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:27:07 +0000

Since I don’t think I actually posted here when I finally finished Mum’s birthday shawl, I shall do so now! I was almost a year late giving it to her in the end, so instead of it being finished for her birthday in April 08, it was finished for Mother’s Day in February 09. The border had taken me *so* much longer than I anticipated, and then I had blocking anxiety so it took me ages to screw up the courage to do that in case I messed it up! But the finished result was worth all the work:

Actually, I don’t think I ever put put the project stats here for this, since it was Sekrit Knitting, so here they are now:

Pattern: Wild Flower Shawl by Dee Bamford. [Ravlink]
Yarn: Posh Yarn Sophia 2ply (100% cashmere) in ‘Strawberry Shortcake’.
Needles: 3.25mm circular (Addi Turbo bamboo)
Ravelry Project Page: WFS

And would you believe, this shawl is now almost-famous? Our knitting group was in the Readers Projects section of The Knitter magazine, issue 7, and this shawl was one of the ones we sent off to them to feature. Hee!