Lou-quacious Yarns
More catching up! Here are days 25 to 34 of my Project 365 photos. If you want to see all the photos so far, click on the Project 365 category link, or check out the Project 365 folder in the photo album.
On to the pics (click them for the full sized versions):
Continue reading “Project 365 #5, Days 25-34: 3rd – 12th Feb”
I’ve been having a really good clear-out over the last few weeks, and I’m starting to feel less mentally cluttered as well already. I’ve even eBayed more of my yarn. I know! Can I really be breaking my hoarding mentality? Well, no, not if you look at my bookshelves (MY books *clings*) and, uh, the remainder of my yarn stash. Not to mention the contents of my wardrobe and drawers… and a couple of suitcases… However, I am going to eBay some more stuff. Not yarn this time (although I might be able to persuade myself to part with a couple more skeins), but things like my spare Palm cradle (never used) and serial cable (not used since approx 3 computer upgrades ago)… oh, and I’m sure there are some other things. I have also sorted out more clothes and knick-knacks etc to go off to the charity shop. I think I still have more to do there, though!
Unfortunately, I’ve been a bit stalled on the whole thing because I’m still ill. Bleuch. I left the flat yesterday for the first time in about 2 weeks (alright, maybe my mental health hasn’t been ideal: being stuck indoors ill was threatening to push me into a ‘down’, but I think I’ve caught it in time) because I had to go to the Post Office, and stopped in to speak to the pharmacist on the way. She reckons I have bronchitis or a chest infection, and what with being asthmatic already, I’ve been told to go to the doctor tout de suite. I know, I know, I should have gone a week ago. I am Procrastination Woman. In this case, that’s particularly stupid of me since it means I’ve been propped at a weird angle in bed for several days since I can neither sit/stand up or lay down normally and breathe comfortably. V annoying. Oh well. I have an appointment this afternoon. I’ll be fixed soon. On the plus side, this whole thing seems to have sorted out my insomnia / wonky body-clock thing that I had going on: I’m now tired / sleeping during the actual night again, instead of being awake all night and tired or asleep all day. Hoorah!
In knitting news, I have got some work done on my WIPs. I really must remember to make a couple of posts about my current WIPs and recently completed FOs to spring-clean that off my mental to-do list. Mainly I’ve been working on “Mmm, Refreshers”, which is a Christmas gift. Can’t say anything else about it in case the recipient trundles over here. You never know with my friends and family *peers around suspiciously*. I’ve also done a bit of “WFS” (likewise, Christmas), and some of my Fireworks socks… which are for me me me, so there. Obviously I finished my Tête à Fetching (wore it when I went out yesterday), and I’m really chuffed with the response – some people have said they like it and want to make it, it’s in a few queues (and one in-progress!) on Ravelry, and I even got a really lovely comment from Cheryl Niamath who designed the Fetching gloves. :-) I’ll get the scarf pattern written up soon-ish as well, but I want to make a wider version of it for Mum first. Once I’ve finished something else, that is.
I actually think my WIP tolerance has been reached. If I cast on one more project, my head would explode. I can cope, just about, with the number I have going at once right now (8 plus 3 in hibernation) because I have a definite Christmas deadline for, um, three of them. Although I have at least two more things I wanted to cast on for gift knitting as well. Oh dear. But I’m not going to think about that now! The thing is, those gift knits are the ones which are taking priority, and the rest are pushed to the back-burner. Some more than others – I’m still working on my various pairs of socks (for me) every now and again, to give myself a break. It seems to be working. But anyway, like I said, I’ll make a proper all-about-my-WIPs post a bit later.
I didn’t find my gloves, by the way. So far I’ve been wearing my Fetchings or my Hurry Up Spring fingerless ones, but I’ve wound a skein of Yarn Yard Merino sock into a ball to make some new ones – I think I’m going to make cabled ones with that. And I did crumble and get ones of the glove kits, so I’m going to make a pair with that too.
Yay, gloves! I’m not allowing myself to cast on for them until I’ve finished a couple of my current WIPs, though. Preferably the Christmas gift ones, since those have a deadline!
Hmm, was there anything else I was going to say? I can’t think… oh! I remember. I found a (the) Holiday Gift KAL-CAL. Just what I wanted! I have duly signed myself up. Um. Oh yes, and I’ve been working on my next (final? I’m not sure if I’ll be sending one more package or if I’ll split it into two – Katie, do you have any preferences?) SP11 package. Mwahaha. Etc. ;-)
Right, that’s enough being upright for me for the time being. I’m going back to bed for a bit to listen to the radio / podcasts while knitting, then I shall get up again, have foooood, and get myself off to the doctor’s. TTFN!
I finished my Tête à Fetching – woohoo! Here’s the project info:
Pattern: Tête à Fetching by Me (inspired by Cheryl Niamath’s Fetching gloves, from the Summer 06 Knitty).
Yarn: Posh Yarn Sophia 6-ply (100% cashmere) in Mute – approx. 1 skein.
Needles: 16cm 4mm circular; Set of 5 4mm DPNs.
Size: Medium (22″ head)
It looks a smidge larger on Angelique-the-Head than it really is, due to her being slightly scaled down. However, it’s easier to take photos of hats on her than on myself, so there we are. Point is, it fits me perfectly, and I love it!
What’s more, I’ve even written the pattern up and uploaded it just in case anyone else fancies knitting it themselves. I knitted it in DK weight, but like the Fetching gloves, you can use an aran weight to get a thicker, warmer fabric.
PDF download – left click then save:
Tête à Fetching ( downloads)
I’ll link it on Ravelry as well, because I can. And hey, if anybody else does have a go at this, let me know – I’d love to see what other people might do with it. I might be making another one for my Mum for Christmas, this time in Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk aran. She wants a pair of Fetching (Fetchings?), you see. I should have enough yarn to make either a matching hat or scarf (post on that coming soon!) to go with them, I just have to ask her which she’d prefer. I don’t think I have enough for both, unfortunately. Luckily, since she asked me for the gloves, I can check back with her about a hat / scarf. This is not her Sekrit Xmas pressie!
Anyway, do let me know what you think of the hat – any problems, issues, vast donations of wealth…. ;-) This is the first pattern I’ve put up, so constructive criticism can only help any future efforts! Encouraging “I like it” comments are also, of course, extremely welcome! Thanks :-)
I’ve discovered something kind of interesting. To me, anyway. 
You see, I’d decided I wanted a hat to go with my Fetching wristwarmers. This meant applying the stitch pattern and cables used on Fetching to a hat. Well, with a couple of small variations – aren’t there always? What I’ve discovered is, I approach knitting designing in the exact same two ways I have of approaching music composition.
Usually when I make a hat (or scarf or bag or whatever), I almost completely improvise. Often, I don’t even swatch, I just rely on the fact that I know that I’ll get this approximate gauge with those needles and that weight yarn, and base my number of cast on stitches on that. I’ll keep to approximate guidelines – just like staying within a key (or its relatives) – but otherwise I’ll wing it from there… sometimes even in terms of stitch pattern, although not always. If it works out well, I might go back and record what I’ve done on paper later on.
This time, I used what is actually my other method of writing music: I take a motif that I’ve worked out on an instrument beforehand, then decide on a key, key sig, and orchestration, and write everything else straight down onto paper out of my head. I’m pretty sure I know how it’s going to sound, but there’s sometimes the odd surprise *g*. Along very much the same lines, I started the design for my “Tête à Fetching” hat by taking the motif of the Fetching wristwarmers cables / ribbing which I have already knitted and therefore am familiar with the look of it. I swatched, I calculated, and I wrote out the provisional pattern on paper, including variations which didn’t occur in the original motif. Now, I’m knitting it:
I’ll let you know how it goes, and with luck put the finished pattern up when I’m done!
It’s been a looooooooooong day… and why I’m not in bed already, I’m not really sure. I’m running on caffeine fumes, or something. It was my uncle’s funeral, so we’ve been to Norfolk and home again (5:30am start, most of the day spent in the car…. ow my back). 
On the plus side, because I’m not allowed to drive at the moment, I got some knitting done. Um, yay? So yup, I have another couple of inches done of my Whitby sock. There would have been more, but I was pretty tired by the time we were on our way home, so I slept for a couple of hours. I feel a bit guilty about that, cos Mum and M were having to stay awake and do the driving. But then, I didn’t sleep well last night because my brain was in ‘oh no, what if I don’t wake up in time’ mode.
The funeral was fine, and it was good to see all my cousins, even if the circumstances weren’t exactly great. I even met up with a cousin I haven’t seen since we were both 2, and a couple of others that I might not have met at all. I have a lot of cousins. The ones who are all my age are actually my first-cousins-once-removed (the children of my first cousins) due to the generational wonk my family has going on. *g* One of these is my cousin B, who is great, and who I’m hoping to keep in touch with more regularly – we’ve been saying we will, but crucially this time we remembered to exchange email addrs! Hopefully I’ll get the chance to go and stay with her at some point so we can have a proper catch-up.
Back to the knitting, I’ve been doing lots of other things as well. I finished my first Hedara sock:
And the kitty-face baby hat that I’ve done for a friend’s expected new baby:
Aaaaaand finally I’ve finished off the HP Slytherin scarf I’ve been making for Sann for, oh, years (it was the weaving in of the ends that I stalled on). Hoorah!
Yaaaaay, finished objects! I feel like I’m on a bit of a roll now: I’m determined to finish one of the jumpers that’ve been lurking for years as well (see sidebar). I had resolved that I wasn’t going to cast anything new on until I’d finished at least one project, and now I’ve finished two and a half… but… finishing one of those flippin’ jumpers will feel like a real achievement. So that’s my next plan, along with continuing with the other things I have on the needles, of course! I really must remember to post on here with pics of the other things I’ve done recently as well. But not tonight. Now, it’s bedtime. Zzzzzzzzzz………
I’m listening to / watching the Last Night of the Proms at the mo. Ah, Last Night, I luff you! One of these days I’ll actually go in person. I’ve actually been a completely rubbish Prommer this year and not been to a single one. I was just too broke to get up to London. Next year! I’m determined. I’ve enjoyed listening on the radio and catching the odd one on telly, but it’s not the same as being in the Hall yourself. I’ve loved the Albert Hall since I first sung there when I was 10. There’s just no atmosphere like it for me. It’s my all time favourite concert hall in the world, no contest. Even the Sydney Opera House, fabulous as it is, just doesn’t have the same emotional attachments I guess. So yes. Go the Proms!
*break while I sing along to Jerusalem*
But what I was originally going to post about was my Monkey socks. I finished them! I like them lots. They’re all comfy too. I’m gradually getting faster at the knitting of socks – I spose it’s more that I’m picking the sock up to knit it more often rather than physically knitting them faster.
Did I mention that the foot was way faster than the leg? I think I did. I ended up with quite a lot of yarn left over – maybe even a third of a ball. Anyway, here they are:
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:
Continue reading “Loopylou and the Multitude of HP Scarves!”
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!
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]
While I’m still trying to find a way round the not being able to upload any new photos problem, I thought I’d bore you to death with my old ones! Isn’t that a plan? So go check out my photo album, specifically, the Finished Objects category. There’s all sorts of exciting stuff in there, like, ooh, Harry Potter scarves, and …. more Harry Potter scarves. *g* And hats and bags and some other stuff. Go on, go have a laugh.
Hoorah, I’ve actually finished “BP” and the Sirdar Snuggly intarsia kitty-face baby jumper. And since they’ve now been wrapped and given as birthday presents to my friend C and her little boy respectively, I can reveal that BP is in fact a variation on the Coleen cropped cardigan from Magknits. Basically, I used different yarn, and knit it in two colours rather than just the one. Mainly because I wasn’t quite sure that I had enough of any one colour in the yarn to knit the whole thing. I’m pretty sure I would have run short if I’d tried. As it is, I really like the way it turned out.
The Sirdar baby jumper (pattern #1668) was knit exactly to pattern, other than using a different main colour than shown on the pattern leaflet. Oh, and I also didn’t seam all the way up the neck, but added a button and a crochet chain button-loop so that it wouldn’t be too tight for getting on and off.
I took photos before I wrapped them up, so I’ll upload and post those tomorrow. They were both very well received, and C was lovely enough to appreciate the time-and-care factor of me having made the presents for them. :-)
Now I’m off to bed, and to continue resisting the new Harry Potter book. It can wait til tomorrow! Sleep is more important! Really, it is. Am I convincing anyone yet?…
I’m only just getting around to uploading my photos, but I finished these socks… um… a couple of weeks ago now, I think. You will notice that the cat refused to get out of the frame – see below for an even better example of that. *g*
Anyhow, these were made in Regia’s ‘Mini Ringel Color’ shade #5217, which as you can see is nice and bright! I made them with 2.5mm DPNs using a basic sock pattern that I got free with some Opal yarn ages ago, although slightly modified since I made them longer (to the top of my calves) so they’d go well under my DMs. Therefore it needed to be a bit wider at the top – I actually cast on 6 extra stitches and decreased further on down, but I think in future I should just start with larger needles. The finished socks are a bit stiff feeling… not too tightly knitted, but the yarn itself. I think they’ll soften up after they’ve been washed though, as my Opal ones certainly have.
In other news, this time I’m trying posting using w.bloggar – let’s see how it goes…
Now back to the sock pics: