What I knit on my holidays - part #1

This was my backup holiday project. Without a current portable project on the go and a new project to start which I wasn't entirely sure would work I packed this "very easy" hat pattern, the right size needles, and a ball of handspun just in case.



I didn't get quite as much done as I thought I would on the journey (due to the need to assist with the navigation on A roads rather than motorways) but I had a couple of good sessions in Ireland and have really motored on since I got back.



I'm just about ready to work the decrease round and then it's on to 8 inches of two by two rib.



What's that marking the beginning of my round?



Whilst in Stirling I was bemoaning my lack of matching stitchmarkers and Mel very kindly offered to make me some. These were waiting for me on the doormat when we got back from holiday. They are soo pretty - thank you Mel!

Kicks and flicks

I'm very excited! It's jive week in Strictly and I have new shoes.



They're ecoSneaks from Simple Shoes. I came across them in Schuh this evening and I was rather taken with their ethical policies and use of recycled materials (including old tyres and milk cartons). However, I have to confess that although I love the idea of ethical shoes the main factor was that I loved the pink laces against the grey suede and thought that they'd look rather fabulous with my collection of knee length skirts.



Now all I need are the fabulous stripy grey tights I saw in M&S earlier.

I'm also very excited about the OGWSD guild meeting tomorrow. It feels like ages since the last guild meeting in the summer so I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone and settling down to some quality time with the wheel. I've got some Shetland singles on the wheel which I'm about halfway through plying and I think I'll take along the Welsh grey and Massam fibre to go into my British sheep breeds handspun blanket. This isn't because I'm running out of Shetland fibre, in fact I think I might already have enough spun and plied for the rest of my Arisaig cardigan and I don't want to have too much two-ply left over - I have already have enough leftovers in my stash.

Autumn days

We had the most glorious October day yesterday. It was so sunny that I was almost too warm sitting outside with my knitting at lunchtime.



I'd been a little concerned that I might struggle a little to find my bearings when I picked up the left front of the Arisaig cardigan after a break of a couple of months but the simple lace pattern and the fact that it's easy to count the increases and decreases by the repeats of the lace meant that I was able to carry on as though I had never left off.

The very steep decreases for the front neckline meant that every row was a little but shorter and I was able to make really good progress before the end of the day. I would have made even better progress if I hadn't got so carried away that I knit about 2 inches past the start of the armhole and had to rip back to the right place (oops!). Having had sizing issues with lace cardigans in the past (yes, I'm talking about you here, Katharine vest) I thought that this would be a good moment to block the back and check that the lace and ribbing really would stretch out to the required dimensions.



Yay! I even held a real piece of clothing up against it to make sure and so can now knit on with confidence.

Do put your dinosaur on the stage

Bollo the bifflosaur has just returned from his theatrical engagements in London. He was very excited when he found out that he would be travelling first class but a bit miffed when he realised it would be in a padded envelope. He's not said much yet about his experiences but luckily Matthew very kindly sent a photo of Bollo (centre) on stage with his dinosaur co-stars.



I'll be putting up either a pattern or a recipe for a dinosaur soon I hope - depends how much I can remember of what I did.

Holiday knitting

I knit these Monkeys whilst not exactly on holiday but whilst travelling at least. On the train (and tube) to London, whilst helping to look after my niece, whilst on another train up to Bolton, and the very last bits on my bus to and from work. All this knitting whilst on the go, all the gathering up of parcels and stuffing knitting into bag to change trains (or nappies) might explain whilst I slipped up a teensy bit on the second sock. You don't see it?



I'm a repeat short in the foot, argh! I only noticed last night at knitting and there's no time to fix it now before these are whisked away to be samples for Megan at FibreFest. The consolation is that I only noticed the mistake after some careful comparison and counting so maybe no-one else will spot it, right?

That apart, I love these socks. I'm so happy with how my handspun sock yarn turned out and quite suprised that I was able to spin a 3 ply fine enough to knit on 2.5mm needles. The bfl/silk blend was lovely to spin with and I really love the blend of solid and heathered colours that emerged.

As there wasn't actually anything I could do about it last night I tried to put it out of my mind and get on with some more sock knitting. Having just finished two projects and not having another in a state where I just just pick it up and start knitting I was scouting around last night for a simple project that I could just get going on and came across this long neglected sock.



At one point I had knit these up to the heel of the first sock using what I thought was a proven formula for me before I tried them on and realised that I would risk DVT every time I wore them. I ripped back, obviously did something reall weird with the yarn (there's a whole separately wound ball inside the yarn cake), re-knit as far as the toe and then got distracted.



i'm not quite sure why because I love this yarn. It's the last of my Jaeger Matchmaker Merino which I dyed into a rainbow stripe pattern using food colouring. Each colour change is just about a single round and the effect is both gorgeous and designed to keep me knitting, just till the next colour change.

Spin, ply, wash, dry

Hand spun sock yarn in Cherry and Espresso dyed by The Thylacine.



I offered to spin and knit a sample for Megan's stand at FibreFest at the end of August. I chose this beautiful colourway on a base of oatmeal bfl and silk and it has spun up beautifully. Not quite like I thought it would, the brown looks much darker, almost grey once spun, but that's always one of the nice surprises about spinning, how colours appear to change when spun and plied.

I've only plied about half the spun fibre so far as I just needed to have something to take away with me to London for the next few days so I could get a start on the knitting. I've cast on for a pair of Monkeys on 2.5mm needles but I'm taking the rest of my Harmony dpns along just in case I need to go up a needle size.

Grey lace on a grey morning

So grey, in fact, that the only way I could get any decent shots of Arisaig in progress was to squish it onto the window sill in the study on the side of the flat where the sun, if it had decided to put in an appearance this morning, would have been.



But whereas the grey outside is just flat and depressing, in fact the sky is really white rather than grey, the grey lace is far from that. The handspun yarn has a lovely springy texture and the colour of the natural grey Shetland fibre is full of subtleties.



Another cause for happiness is that, although you can't see it from these shots, I am onto the very last row of lace before the back shoulder shaping which means that the back is almost done. This does, of course, mean that shortly I'll be back onto knitting 2x2 rib on the tiny tiny needles for the fronts but it makes such a lovely crisp fabric that it's really worth it.

Starting small

I'm so excited about knitting Arisaig that I couldn't even wait to finish spinning the yarn before I cast on.



The pattern starts off with 10 rows of 2x2 rib on tiny needles (2.25mm). I only have this size in a pair of Prym metal straights.



These are the suckers that the airlines have in mind when they tell you that knitting needles are dangerous objects. It's going to be a relief to finish my ten rows and move onto the relatively chunky size of 2.75mm I can tell you.

Some fibre, a plan, a wheel, arisaig!

Ok so it doesn't have an internal rhyme and it's not a palindrome but it's a snappier title than "Nain otalgia sir, an arisaig Latonian"* which is the only palindrome I could devise containing "arisaig".

I've been wanting to knit this ever since I first started reading Knitty but I've never had enough of the right yarn at the right time.



Then just last week I realised that I had more than enough grey Shetland fibre to spin the fingering weight yarn needed for the project and that I'd already spun up some gorgeous blue Shetland in the same weight for the tie and edging which are done in a contrast colour.

I'm really excited both at the thought of finally knitting (and wearing) Arisaig and at creating a whole non-sock garment from my handspun.

* It's English, Jim, but not as we know it. Nain (my own) otalgia (earache) sir, an arisaig Latonian (pertaining to Latona, mother of Apollo and Diana). I suppose Diana could be telling Apollo to stop playing music for a moment and admire the wrap cardigan she's knitted for mother. It does get nippy up in the Greek highlands.