Get it finished Friday

Inspired by Christine Selleck of the Pointy Sticks podcast I had my very own version of "get it finished Friday" on the train up north this weekend. I took with me the 5 or so inches of Argyle sleeve which had been hanging around at the bottom of a plastic bag for several weeks and turned it into an almost complete sleeve by Saturday lunchtime, at which point I ran out of yarn, a failure of forward planning and packing on my part. In fact the overall knitting shortage - I brought a jumper sleeve and the toe of the second butterfly sock (which is now knit up to the ankle) - had got quite worrying by Sunday morning leading me to schedule a sneaky trip into town with Mum on the way to the train station. Our local department store has either just started to stock yarn and knitting supplies or they've started to display it more prominently. Apparently they have Rowan although I don't yet know which yarns they have, the extent of the detail that Mum could supply was "big balls and smaller ones".

Butterflies
This sock is knit using the Butterfly Wings stitch pattern from the Harmony Guide to Knitting Stitches 2 which I found in Oxfam for £2.49. You can't really see the butterfly wings very well in this yarn (Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Vera which I picked up at the Knitting and Stitching show), on the other hand you also can't see the two mistakes on the instep of the first foot which I made before I realised that I should follow the pattern in my knitting, rather than in the book.

Abingdon Marathon 2006

I have a warm glow (and extremely sore legs) after completing my first marathon on Sunday. The race took place in and around Abingdon, a very pretty town on the Thames with an excellent wool shop (Mason's). The weather was mostly fine, despite the horrendous forecast the night before and I made a pretty good time around the course finishing in 4:04:51 (yay!) which was much better than I had anticipated. I'm now very much on track for London in the spring and really looking forward to it.

Me crossing the finish line

Post-race drink

Knitting and Stitching Show 2006—Part 2

Even after several drafts I still couldn't quite create a single homogenous post combining what I bought and the K&S Show with what I did and saw there. So, two posts. I arrived at Ally Pally (very excited) at about 11.30ish on Friday morning and spent about a half-hour scoping out the lay of the land—important things such as the locations of Get Knitted and Loop and (less excitingly but no less vital) where the loos were. I then got the call to say that Katie and Lara (friends don't let friends loose on a yarn show on their own!) had arrived and we set about traversing the main hall in a very orderly search and rescue style grid pattern. Favourite stands included: UK Alpaca where I spent about 5 minutes thrusting alpaca fibre at Katie and Lara and saying "Have you felt this!" (Lara later succumbed to the fibre); Laughing Hens, whose gorgeous Rooster (the yarn not the bird) covered sofa we collapsed onto at several points; 21st Century Yarns where I fingered the tiny silk skeins for embroidery and got dangerously enthused about the possibilities for miniture knitting and Foreign Strand which had Monkey Sticks and the gorgeous Namasté vintage knitting bag (as seen here) and buffalo yarn—a seriously tempting proposition until I noticed the £40 (per skein) price label. Plus it only comes in brown! It was a really lovely day out. I saw loads of beautiful and interesting things and tried spinning for the first time (more on this later). And now, some photos...

Lara and Katie on the Laughing Hens sofa

Lara and Katie meet Sarah Dallas

I did also have a shot without a random person in the foreground but Lara was looking rather serious in it.

Rooster yarn and cushions at Laughing Hens

I also wish I'd taken pictures of Lara and myself being taught to use a drop spindle and the fabulous knitted bunting at Laughing Hens and just more yarn generally. Still there's always next year!

Knitting and Stitching Show 2006—Alexandra Palace

I bought

Five balls of Aarlan 70% angora
This is just so soft and pretty I had to have it. I had been wanting to knit something in angora since watching The Black Dahlia and coveting the lovely angora sweaters in Monsoon. Sadly they only had five balls left in the cream but I think that will be enough for a mini-cardi along the lines of Elspeth.

Buttons and beads
Whenever I see bead and button stalls all my magpie instincts come to the fore. They're just pretty and shiny and I especially like the fishy bead. I think the black buttons will go on a pair of felted slippers which I plan to make from an old pink sweater and the black and pink beads can go on the fingerless gloves from last month's Magknits.

Lana Grossa and Lorna's Laces sock yarn from Get Knitted
I saw this quite early on in the day but managed to restrain myself until about 5pm. The Lorna's Laces is going to be a pair of entrelac socks (if I can work out the heel) and I think the Lana Grossa will just be a plainish garter rib, possibly the same stitch pattern as the International Sock of Doom.

A drop spindle and some tops from the Hand Weavers Studio
Lara and I finally found someone who would show us how to use a drop spindle at the Hand Weaver's Studio. They also had huge basketfuls of these gorgeous little tops at 50p a shot so I was able to get a spinning starter's kit for just £5. I've already spun the bright pink, the orange and the burgundy and I feel I'm slowly improving. Hopefully by the time I've got through the white and the rose I might be good enough to be let loose on the good stuff! Hipknits has some gorgeous silk/merino in the most beautiful hand-dyed colours.

Elspeth cardi

This has been finished for weeks but I only presented it to Mum for her birthday on Tuesday so I've been keeping it under wraps (my mum knows where my blog is!). As a birthday treat we visited London and had tea at Liberty (where I was very restrained in front of the Jaeger Matchmaker 4-ply) and mooched round Covent Garden and finally wound up at the Royal Opera House where we drank champagne at the Perrier Jouet champagne bar (ooh swish!) and saw Darcey Bussell in the first of three one act ballets. A jolly nice time was had by all!

The cardi is knit with 3 and a bit balls of Rowan Calmer on size 5mm needles. It was a relatively quick and simple knit, although I occasionally tripped up on lining up the pattern repeats with the decreases. It's a really sweet little cardi and I'm very tempted to make one for myself in a different yarn. Maybe they'll have angora at the show tomoz!
I'm extremely excited about going to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Ally Pally tomorrow. The show guide arrived on Monday and I spent a half hour leafing through it and going "ooh!". I'm very eager to check out HipKnits and Cherry Tree Hill yarns and am toying with the idea of buying a spindle.

I have a few small things on the go at the moment. I finally gave up on the Pomatomus socks. I loved the pattern and the colour. I just wasn't keen on them as socks. Anyway, I'm using the yarn to knit the Whitewater wristwarmers pattern from the October issue of Magknits as socks and it's working out really nicely. I also have a third pair of Fetching gloves on the dpns (I don't know why I've been misnomering them as "Fresh" for the last few weeks—really no idea!) this time in cream. Finally I've nearly finished a square of entrelac in the Rowan tapestry. I'm going to add a triangular border and then back it with some fabric to create a cushion. I seem to have completely stalled on the Argyle sweater. It's completely cold enough for woolly jumpers now but it still has no sleeves! I really need to force myself to do something about that but I keep getting distracted by prettier yarns (damn navy blue!).

Why thankyou, it is pretty isn't it

"It" being the new blog header*. The photo is the first peek at the loveliness that comes from combining Rowan Tapestry in Pot Pourri (whatever happened to great Rowan shade names like Raw and Storm and Bear?) and entrelac, something which I'd wanted to try since seeing this. I now have about a 12 inch square of knitting and I've decided to make a cushion. It's just not quite wide enough to make a really satisfying wrap but making it any wider would require much more yarn (about 5 balls?) and I'd have to rip out what I have. There was enough heart wrenching the first time I did that, after realising that 100 cast-on stitches would be far too many. Anyhow, I just need to complete the last row of rectangles and then the final triangle row and then decide on a backing fabric and how it's all going to come together. It's been a pretty speedy knit. I cast-on on Saturday after practicing the method with a bit of baby cashmerino (which I also used for my provisional cast-on) and knit about 1 and a half rows of rectangles before working out (as aforementioned) how much yarn it would take at that width. I ripped back all the rectangles and half the base triangles and then started knitting again from there. The great thing about entrelac is that you have all these little self-contained squares of knitted fabric so if you screw up it's really easy to go back to a certain point without the danger of losing all your stitches. I knit the bulk of the square in a marathon train journey from Bolton to Oxford via Crewe, Tamworth and Birmingham New Street (in that order!). The relief when I finally got on a train which was going to Oxford! Huge thanks to Brenda Dayne of Cast-on and Carrie Anne Dennison of BritKnitCast for keeping me in a zen-like state of calm for the 5¾ hour journey.

* I nearly forgot to say "thankyou" to my boyfriend who picked out the coordinating colours for the background and lettering. When we get our own place he is definitely going to be in charge of the paint charts.

This week I have...

Finished one pair of Fresh glovelets.

Knit one half of the next pair

Eaten the first ripe pepper from the garden

Bought some Tapestry from my local yarn shop and started knitting an entrelac stole (or possibly cushion)

The colourway is gorgeous, ranging from dusky rose, through tawny pinks and oranges to a steely grey. It's a wool and soy fibre mix which gives it such an unusual feel. I'm knitting ten rectangles of ten stitches and have done a provisional cast on so I can do a triangle border. I only bought two balls of yarn so I'm going to measure the stole after the first ball and if it looks like a stole will be way too expensive it can be a big square cushion. I think it would look great with the triangle edging and a reverse side in a deep slubby silk or something similar.

Sock Wars Update

The Socks of Doom arrived in the post on Tuesday morning making me officially dead as far as Sock Wars goes. It was fun whilst it lasted. As a consolation I also received the excellent Knitting Bag of Doom from Lilith my assassin. Thankyou so much. It is very cool and drew much admiration at the Bluestockings meeting last night.

Happy Birthday to you!

In honour of the boyfriend's birthday. The cake recipe is from Nigella's How to Eat (I find that a knife and fork generally gets it done for me!), the sparkly cake board is from Lakeland Limited and the impossibly cute candles are from Sylvester's.

Putting my feet up!

I finished the second sock at around 1.30pm (BST) on Sunday afternoon. This is me checking that the socks will fit—they're a bit big for me so I hope that means that they will fit a US size *. Tsarlingfeld's socks are in the mail! I was feeling a little guilty at the thought of sending out killer socks first thing on Monday morning but I needn't have been as she has also been knitting "like the wind"! I am, however, I little worried about my yarn choice as DK alpaca seems a little warm for California—does it ever get cold out there? I feel like I'm going to be an early casualty of war though. My assassin, tigerlilith, has got her socks finished and is UK based (gah!). I love the colour though and they're knitted in cashmerino (yay).

The only thing about this competition is that the socks take longer to post than they do to knit. Won't that mean that everyone will have knit a pair of socks and sent them off before anyone receives any? Clapotis wars anyone?

S-day!

I've been spending the morning alternating between yarnmonkey's site to see if the pattern is up yet and the BBC to check the Ryder Cup scores. So far, no pattern and the scores are level at 1.5—1.5. I'm just waiting for the last four-ball result to come in. I've been passing the time by knitting a gauge tube. My gauge is usually the same as published patterns and I haven't yet had to use different needles from the ones suggested but you never know what tension the yarnmonkey will get from knitting with those tiny monkey paws. And no opposable thumbs either!

S-day minus 1

I have the yarn, my needles are freed-up and I'm ready to go as soon as the pattern is posted. I finished knitting the toe of the first Pom mk2 sock at lunchtime today after knitting practically the whole of the foot whilst watching The Black Dahlia last night after the Bluestockings meeting. I just need to Kitchener stitch the toe this evening then I'm one sock down, one to go. I've cast on a further pair of Fresh glovelets - they're just so cute and I love the yarn. And I've actually bought a further ball of Cashmerino Aran after that for a third pair in cream. It's going to be handwarmers for everyone this Christmas!

The Black Dahlia (2006)
Dir. Brian de Palma
Scarlett Johansson
Josh Hartnett
Aaron Eckhardt
Hilary Swank
Plot complexity rating: stocking stitch in the round with the caveat that you may want something slightly bigger than a sock to hide behind during the grisly moments

From a knitting point of view the high point of the film was definitely Scarlett Johansson's wardrobe. Her character wears a fantastic succession of champagne and oyster coloured twinsets and her final scene is in a gorgeous white (either mohair or angora) mini-sweater.

Obviously I won't be taking on anything new until after Sock Wars. However, when it's over I want to knit
this. Last night Ruth announced that she would be knitting it when she had finished her current project, I wasn't familiar with the pattern so when I came across the link today I followed it. I think I'd like to make a striped version—something bold like red and white or blue and white (either that or I'll end up in my usual pink through brown palette).

Fa—a long, long way to run!

I still have show tunes stuck in my head from watching the final of "Maria" on Saturday, especially "Do—a deer" which I sung to myself for the majority of my 18 mile training run on Sunday in preparation for the Abingdon Marathon. I find that getting a piece of music on repeat in your head, especially one with a regular beat and simple lyrics is fantastic for helping to regulate pace and breathing over long distances. You can also judge how tired you are and whether you need an energy boost by seeing if you can remember all the lyrics. I tend to forget "La—a note to follow so" when dead-beat. As well as discovering the ultimate power-tune this weekend I also found this gem of a site Map My Run which lets you plots your favourite runs, add in symbols for water breaks and toilets and tells you how long the distance is. I'm particularly chuffed with the site as it informed me that I'd actually run 19.7 miles (rather than the intended 18) which not only means that I'm speedier than I thought (yay) but also that I don't have to think of another 2 miles to add on to my next long run.

Finished baby stuff

From the front with the Koigu bootees

Back view with i-cord tie.

Just the bootees.

I've finally solved a styling problem which has been bothering me slightly for some time. There are no attractive surfaces or backdrops in the flat. There's just yellow wallpaper (very
Charlotte Perkins Gilman) and brown carpet). Anyway, when laying out the latest lot of finished items it hit me. Wrapping paper! I had bought some gorgeous paper from )Sylvester's (the one stop shop for great presents) in order to wrap the items so i spread it out and weighted it down and presto! I love the patchwork elephants.

Fresh off the needles

Just finished the Fresh fingerless gloves during "Maria". I'm very pleased with them, they were good fun to knit, the cabled rib at the cuff is extremely cute and has great elasticity. I've just cast-on and completed about 4 rounds of the top ribbing of Pomatomus in the green cashmerino. I ground to a bit of a halt on the Koigu Poms midweek - partly due to a realisation that I was going to run out of yarn, partly due to not being able to work out how to make the heel fit me. It just seemed far too wide when I followed the pattern and I was worried about the instep and sole mismatching if I continued to decrease much further. This is as far as I got before starting to rip back (just to prove I can cope with Chart B)

I've cast on the second attempt with 3.75mm needles, which suddenly strikes me as rather a dumb thing to do since I'm going to need those to knit the International Sock of Doom. I've just been reading some of the comments on Yarnmonkey's blog. I'm slightly scared that people have been swatching. I generally don't for socks. In fact I just don't. I've decided on Artesano Alpaca in (I think) cream (soo beautiful) for my sock, hopefully it's not a lace pattern as lace patterns really don't show up in that stuff so I'll have to get down to the yarn store on Monday to check yardage. I'm so excited, by my reckoning it should all be kicking off on Friday!

More yarn than you can shake a hand-crafted birch pointy stick at!

I wandered into my somewhat infamous local yarn shop on Thursday evening with the fairly firm intention of buying a couple of balls of Alpaca Silk DK with which to knit the gorgeous Seaside fingerless gloves on the cover of September's Magknits. Instead I came away with a single ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in a tea/turquoise colour, the simple reason being that they have expanded their stock! They have cashmerino aran in all the gorgeous colours and they have Rowan! This is very exciting for a girl for whom previously the nearest source of Rowan was eight miles away. They have wool cotton, and kidsilk haze and big wool tufty and tapestry and I'm so excited. They also have the needles out on display. Until now you had to know that they stocked needles and ask for them. "I've heard you stock knitting needles." "Shh..do you want the police round here." It was like the prohibition knitting shop. Only the initiated got to see the good stuff. And it is good stuff. As well as the regular Pryms (in themselves fairly fantastic in a town that otherwise only sells Pony) there are Addis and Brittany's. See how restrained I was in only coming away with a single ball of yarn.

I was still keen on the idea of fingerless gloves though so I am knitting Fresh from the summer issue of Knitty. Like the intro says, these are a weekend knit. I cast on on the train this evening and am already one hand-warmer down and am nearly at the first cable round on the second.

They're very cute and I've already decided who will be receiving them for Christmas. I'm pretty sure I'll knit some more, possibly using two balls of wool and making them a bit longer in the wrist and hand.

Pottery goodies

Last week (thanks to Sara and Aliki) I got back my glazed and fired piggy bank and mug from our session at the Pottery Café. I'm very happy with the pig, a bit less so with the mug I'm OK with that as I kind of felt at the time that it wasn't going to be a great design.

The cake BTW is Nigella's Winter Plum cake from Domestic Goddess. This is a fantastically versatile cake which can be made with practically any tinned or fresh juicy fruit (i.e. not bananas). The great thing is that it tastes just as good (better maybe) with the tinned stuff.

@!*&#* &%# !*#?* Pomatomus socks!

My confidence that I would be able to knit a short row heel and then merrily return to the pattern at the start of Chart B appears to have been ill-founded. I hit snags almost immediately and ended up with far too stitches at the end of the needle. It was at this point that I discovered that these socks are an absolute arse to unknit, let alone rip out. I mean the ripping is easy enough, but getting the damn stitches back on your needles again... After much cursing and after going back about four rounds I finally managed to get 71 stitches. Freakily I was counting along one of the needles and saying "23, that's not enough" seconds before one of the code breakers in Enigma said the exact same thing—of course he was talking about U-boat contacts but the principle's the same. Between tracking down my missing stitch and trying to find the right place to start off again I may have missed some of the finer plot points but I did enjoy the film.

Enigma (2001)
Dir. Michael Apted
Dougray Scott
Kate Winslet
Jeremy Northam
Plot complexity rating*: easy lace

* i.e. the level of knitting you can cope with whilst still being able to follow the plot

Finished objects - Patsy socks

It's really hard to take a good photo of your own feet. The pattern shows up quite well in this one though.

Fish & Flowers

On Saturday, after an uncharacteristically inexpensive trip to Hobbycraft (I spent 25p on ribbon for the bootees!) and before the big game, Mum and I dropped in on the St. Paul's Astley Bridge Flower Festival. The festival was to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Bolton floral group and part of the money raised will go to the Bolton Hospice. The church looked great with every possible surface covered with flowers. I loved the pillars which had been garlanded with hydrangeas and the pew ends which were decorated with lilies.

I also liked "Mary's Garden" in the Lady Chapel which was an installation rather than an arrangement.

My favourite piece was the memorial tree which had been arranged by the Bolton Junior club on which visitors could write a label and hang a red rose in an individual vase in memory of a loved one. I thought it was a lovely idea and the effect was stunning.

Also on Saturday I finally got the hang of Pomatomus after ripping back the first two rows a couple of times. It seems that actually reading the pattern carefully really helps. I'm a bit nervous about running out of yarn (due to the Koigu bootees) so I'm only knitting two repeats of Chart A for the cuff. I haven't decided yet whether to stick to the pattern for the heel. Short rows would be easier with just the four needles and use less yarn and I prefer the fit, but I'm a but nervous about going off pattern as Chart B looks very scary. I love the way the pattern is turning out too but the tension (due to the twisted knits I think) is still pretty tight so it's quite tiring to knit. It's never really a good sign when you can hear your wrists clicking alongside the needles.