My heart leaps up..*

I'd forgotten how much I love this pattern. The rainbow Jaywalkers are just zooming along - I'm nearly up to the heel on the first one. The only thing holding me up is that I keep stopping to admire the colour changes and coo over how beautiful the striping is. I think these are going to be my new favourite socks.





* The Rainbow by W. Wordsworth (1875) - is it just me or does the last line really not scan??

Knit a rainbow

A finished object to start with:



Pattern: Berry Hill fingerless mittens (free Ravelry download)
Yarn: Hand-dyed Debbie Bliss Merino DK (1 ball)
Needles: 3.25mm dpns
Ravelled: here

I've decided that the best way to build up a pattern portfolio is to just start writing stuff down (or up). I certainly improvise enough stuff. These are just a very simple pair of fingerless mitts with the interest coming from the twisted rib in the cuff and at the knuckles and from the lovely shades in the yarn. I put it up on Ravelry on Saturday evening and was so chuffed to find that someone had already cast on a pair on Sunday.

Knitting these mittens from yarn that I hand-dyed last year reminded me how much I enjoy dyeing and knitting with stuff that I've hand-dyed.



Although not so much with these (one ball Rowan Pure Wool DK dyed with Supercook food dye) - I was going for another simple pair of hand-warmers but I've tried 6 stitch patterns so far and ripped back every one. This is the furthest point I got to before ripping back. The tension was so tight that it was hurting my hands to knit and to put the gloves on - not really ideal. I do love the stitch pattern though so I might try again with larger needles and more plain rows and stitches between the cables.

After dyeing one skein of variegated yarn I thought I'd follow Ellen and have a go at some stripes. I created a 5.6 metre skein by winding the yarn around the door handles in my flat. Ideally it would have been a bit longer but I thought I'd get in trouble if I made the bathroom inaccessible for the best part of an hour!



As I wanted stripes in 6 different colours (and I don't have 6 pans, let alone 6 rings on my hob) I decided to do these in mugs in the microwave.

I arranged the yarn in the mugs, added the water and cream of tartar (for mordant) and then put the microwave plate in the microwave before adding the dye* - it just seemed safer. Getting them out again was a bit hairy though.



The yarn dried in time for me to take it to Aliki's yesterday to wind up on her ball winder. I had lots of fun watching the woolly blur on the winder change from red through to purple.



The yarns in the background are from Oxford Kitchen Yarns (right) and All the Pretty Fibers (left). I have big plans for these.

After all the tense cable knitting and ripping I needed something really straightforward in order to knit away the frustration.



Luckily I now have the perfect yarn for rainbow Jaywalkers.

* Dyeing this yarn meant that I had the rainbow song stuck in my head all day - and it's not even a helpful guide to dyeing a spectrum, I nearly put purple and blue in the wrong way around.

A different kind of WIP

In honour of Felix's SLOUNGE event at the Vaults this evening I thought I'd share my washing-up in progress.



I don't quite fit neatly into any of types A, B, and C when it comes to washing up. There's definitely a bit of C in there when it comes to finding clean cutlery to use with dinner and there's quite a lot of B in that I do quite enjoy the washing-up when I get around to doing it. Finally there's a bit of A since when the washing-up does get done it gets done properly with lots of hot water for the glasses and cleaning between the tines of forks. I even wash the bowl and sink out afterwards*.

Of course I haven't let all this washing-up get in the way of the knitting.

FO - second pair of Hopscotch socks



Pattern: Hopscotch by Liz Thompson (that's me folks!)
Yarn: Regia 4-ply
Needles: 2.5mm

Yesterday was quite a frantic day at work so it was nice to be able to look down at my feet from time to time and know that I was wearing a great pair of socks.

You'd think I'd be sick of twisted rib by the time I'd completed 20 rounds for the ribbing of these socks but no. I was inspired by these socks to just try knitting in offset twisted rib (4 rounds of *k1 tbl, p1* followed by 4 rounds of *p1, k1 tbl*) and see what happened.





The first is a camera case in some hand-dyed Debbie Bliss merino dk (I must do more supercook dyeing) and the second is a sock in the Lorna's Laces Shepherd sock that I got at our last yarn swap. I'm so happy that Helen (the swapper) isn't keen on purple because I love it. Although the pattern is so simple and it's all 1x1 rib I'm just enjoying knitting along and watching the colours change.

* I usually do this, although I do think that the Finish advert that confidently asserts "you wouldn't wash your dishes in a dirty bowl..." is making a lot of assumptions about how people do wash up.

More spring greens

Pattern: Classic cardigan from The Baby Knits Book by Debbie bliss
Yarn: Baby Cashmerino
Needles: 3mm/3.25mm
Ravelled: here

Altogether this turned into a pleasingly thrifty project. The stashed yarn is nearly all gone and the buttons were reclaimed from an old pair of gloves. I'm really pleased by how the red and white add a bit of quirkiness whilst the green really seems to match the yarn. I also had a pair of deep pink buttons but I wanted to keep the cardigan unisex. The neck has turned out a bit small (as with the first of these) but you can always leave the top button undone.





Meantime out on the balcony the lettuces and spinaches are really coming along - in fact the baby spinach leaves are edible already.



We also had two tub of grow your own salad containing lamb's lettuce, pak choi and more spinach but it turned out we weren't really so keen on them so they've become purely decorative - luckily the flowers are pretty.

WIP - Classic cardigan

More yarn reclaimed from the stash. I bought this apple green baby cashmerino to knit a pair of fingerless gloves from the (now defunct) Magknits site. I can't recall the pattern name - something to do with the sea?



Anyway, I got as far as the fingers on the first glove and just couldn't work out how to continue the pattern into them. I fudged it and made a start on the second glove but it wasn't really working for me so they languished in the UFO pile for a year or two. I had a big tidy up of the stash on Friday - wound all the oddments into neat little balls, separated out the needles, and ripped back anything where the yarn could be used for another project.



Two balls of baby cashmerino (minus the fingers which I could not be bothered to rip back individually) should be just enough for a newborn size baby cardigan. Baby books don't tend to give patterns in actual newborn size (figuring that most knitters want the garment to fit the baby for more than 2 seconds) but it can be achieved by downsizing yarn and needles. In this case I'm knitting the 3-6 month size of a pattern which calls for 4mm/4.5mm needles and aran weight yarn on 3mm/3.25mm needles with a yarn between 4 ply and DK weight to achieve a three-quarters size garment. All the stitch counts remain the same, you just need to remember to multiply all measurements in cm/inches by 0.75.



So far I've knit the body and half a sleeve and I'm still on the first ball. There may even be enough over for matching bootees.

Brand new/old bag

This is more or less my first ever knitting FO.



I bought the yarn way back when Oxford actually had a Rowan shop (it's now a copy place - sigh) along with a copy of Big Easy in order to knit the pattern Merry. Sadly when the pattern was done not only was I not too keen on the gauge (a little indecent frankly) but the damn thing wouldn't go over my head. After toying with the idea of undoing one shoulder and adding buttons I finally ripped it all out and wondered what to do with the rather expensive yarn.

The answer was this bag from another Rowan big wool book (bought for another doomed Rowan big wool project - more of which later) which knit up quickly and easily, looked great - and stretched like nothing on earth which is why it sat in a drawer for the last two years. It only occurred to me this weekend that lining it might just do the trick.

Pattern: Violet from The Next Big Thing
Yarn: Rowan Big Wool
Needles: 10mm
Lining and handle fabric is by Makower from Hobbycraft.

It's now carrying around my latest knitting project which matches it in a very pleasing manner.

After struggling to machine stitch cotton fabric to chunky merino wool (my poor machine foot) sticking a border around the quilt was the work of a moment (or at least half an hour).



My cotton batting arrived from the Quilt Room on Monday and I'd be quilting away right now if I hadn't accidentally left the parcel at Ellen's last night - oops. If she brings it to knitting for me on Wednesday please, please don't let me leave it in the pub.

Last but not least, the pattern for the Hopscotch socks is finally up on Ravelry. it has been test knit twice so I'm hoping that there aren't too many errata. If you spot any please let me know via Ravelry or the comments.

Spring greens

I'm all set to finish the Cabbage Patch quilt now that I've bought fabric for the backing (green gingham) and a border (more cabbages). I also found some lovely variegated thread in yellowy greens for the quilting.



On the knitting front I've cast on another River stole. I've been wearing my old one to work all this week. It's beautifully light so you don't feel like you're wearing a big woolly scarf around the office but toasty warm at the same time and the mohair silk blend just gets softer and softer with wear. The difference between the one I've just cast on (quite crisp and sproingy) and the one I've been wearing is really noticeable.



I've also cast on another Little Pyramids scarf in Artesano 4 ply alpaca for my mum. I'm only an inch in, but then it's not needed until October when it's her birthday.



Today was typical British Bank Holiday weather. We gamely set off towards Silverdale (nr Morcambe) in the car in lashing rain and were rewarded by it mostly clearing up at we got nearer to the coast.



We managed a two hour walk and a picnic lunch by the sea without getting soaked. I had fun playing with the macro feature on my camera and taking pics of wildflowers.





Definitely worth getting damp knees for.

Make do and mend

I think that one thing that puts people off knitting socks is the thought of hand knitting something that takes so much punishment. Having worn through a few heels myself I can testify that socks definitely have a shorter shelf life than say a scarf or hat (although you are much less likely to leave them on the bus).

Happily, so long as you catch your socks before they have worn through entirely, they're pretty easy to mend.



Whenever you finish a pair of socks try to keep back a couple of metres of the yarn for mending. You can put it in the drawer where you keep the spare buttons from your shirts and trousers, all neatly labelled (what, you don't do that??). Even if you're the sort of person who knits their socks toe-up until the last inch of yarn is gone you can always use a similar yarn. In fact you don't even need to be too careful about matching the colour given that the mend is going to be on the base of your heel.



Look at the edge of the worn patch that is furthest away from the toe to see where the stitches start to wear thin then count back two rows so that your patch is anchored in firm stitches.

Thread a yarn needle with your mending yarn, then beginning two or three stitches to the right of the worn stitches start to work duplicate stitch following the path of the original stitches in order to reinforce them.

Work until you reach the firm stitches on the left hand side of the patch then move on to the next row and work back in the same way, making sure that you weave the yarn through the new stitches created on the last row. Continue working back and forth like this until you have reached the firm stitches on the toe side of the worn bit and then secure the yarn.

There are pics for this method here. For more traditional darning check out this item from Sky News (there are some great knitting shots!).

Cabbage patch quilt

The sewing which I had planned for Sunday finally got done this evening. I just had seven blocks to stitch together before I could start on laying out the quilt.



I tried my best not to overthink the arrangement of the blocks. I just laid out one vertical strip of 6 different blocks - trying to get a good balance between the dark and lighter blocks - and then laid out the other 3 strips offset by one block.

I'm really happy with the way that the pink/red blocks balance at opposite corners and I love the dark green stripe across the middle.

I'll lose some of the area to seaming but I think that it should work out single bed size (or as a runner for the base of a double bed) once I've put a border on.



I'll take some better close-up shots of the individual blocks once it's sewn together as these photos don't really do the fabrics justice.

Of course some of my motivation for getting this done (aside from working with the lovely fabrics) comes from checking out the Rowan fabrics at liberty the other weekend. It looks like we'll be making another trip to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC this summer and I can't justify buying more fabric until I've finished the two quilts currently on the go.

Bead games

Yesterday was another packed Saturday. I caught an early train to London and squeezed in a visit to my sister and the baby before extending my knowledge of London's public transport system and getting two buses to White Hart Lane to see Bolton play against Spurs. Luckily the stewards on the turnstile, whilst objecting to my bottle cap, had no issues with my 2.5mm dpns so I was able to knit away some of the pre-match tension.



When I got back to Oxford, having a half hour to kill before my bus home, I dropped into Borders to discover a lovely glossy stack of the Spring/Summer issue of Vogue Knitting. I was just flicking through to see if it met the four pattern criteria for purchase when I spotted this, squeezed in between an item on knitting retreats in Blackpool and Rachael Matthews' Analogue Amnesty.



Missability in Vogue Knitting! Just how cool is that?

This made the four patterns thing pretty much a moot point which is lucky as whilst there aren't four things I want to knit, there is most definitely one thing I want to knit - the Kaffe Fasset "In Full Bloom" jacket.



It's gorgeous (and not shaped like a tent) and it's gone straight in my Ravelry queue. It's also knit from Rowan Pure Wool DK (which you might have noticed I like a lot) so no worries about substituting yarns or matching colours.

I had today pencilled in for getting out the sewing machine and putting in some much overdue work on the quilt blocks but as Katie remarked in the comments to the last post, I do have a tendency to get distracted by shiny things and I had a very pleasant afternoon making things out of the beads and fixings that I bought last weekend in London.

After a couple of hours work, this ...



... had turned into these.







The green beads are dyed turquoise and the orange are carnelian and both are from Buffy's Beads off Carnaby Street.

I'm keeping the necklaces but I've popped the stitch markers onto cards to be given as gifts as I think I may just have enough for my own use at the moment.

Naming and shaming

Today's Messy Tuesday post is dedicated to Felix, the originator of all this blog sponsored untidiness.

I know I posted a photo of my stash corner a couple of weeks ago for messy Tuesday but I feel that the situation down there has escalated to such an extent that it merits a further post. The thing has developed its own topography. In this view you can just see past Unmatched Needle Mountain into Tangled Yarn valley and the treacherous shores and murky deeps of Lake UFO.







Talking of which I thought that if I fished a few objects out of said lake it might prompt me (moved by a sense of righteous shame) to do something about them.*

Pattern: Print of the Wavw
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace
Date cast on: March 2007
Date last worked on: August 2007
Target finish date: August 2008
Sense of shame: monumental



I thought I'd start with the worst transgressor in an attempt to end on an upbeat note. The main body of the stole is complete but I've only knit about 50 (I think) rows of edging out of an estimated 1000+ (my fault for knitting it longer than spec.). Initially I just got overfaced by the thought of picking this up and then I kind of just forgot about it. I've set a target finish date of August 2008. It's not completely insane and it would be lovely to wear this in a sunny September with jeans and a white shirt.

Pattern: Anya
Yarn: Kid Classic, Kid Silk Haze, Kid Silk Night
Date cast on: Christmas 2006
Date last worked on: January 2008
Target finish date: Christmas 2008 (can you see a pattern emerging here?)
Sense of shame: burning



The Anya sweater was meant to be ready to wear last Christmas but progress was interrupted by work on the Peacock shawl and last minute Christmas knitting. I'm not as concerned about this as I am about POTW as I know that whenever I do pick it up it fairly flies along. Christmas 2008 is an achievable target and I'd love to have it ready by the time the cold weather kicks in (which in Britain is ususually in the middle of August, hee).

Pattern: Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigan #2
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool DK
Date cast on: April 2008
Date last worked on: April 2008
Target finish date: May 2008
Sense of shame: very mild



This only needs the sheep's faces stitching on before I block it and sew on the buttons. There's no particular hurry on this one as the intended wearer is still a work in progress.

Pattern: Thelonious by Cookie A.
Yarn: Louet Gems Opal
Date cast on: March 2008
Date last worked on: April 2008
Target date: June 2008
Sense of shame: deep



I'm afraid I committed the ultimate sin as far as this sock is concerned in that I removed the poor things needles to use for another project. Sock #1 is 75% done and I really like the pattern, it's just that I wanted to cast on these:

Pattern; Merry Jane shoes
Yarn: Rowan Cashsoft DK/4 ply & Rowan Pure Wool DK/Jaeger Matchmake 4 ply
Date cast on: April 2008
Date last worked on: April 2008
Target finish date: May 2008
Sense of shame: blush





These haven't been in the neglected pile for too long so the shame is mainly coming from the fact that until I pulled them out of the bag earlier I had honestly forgotten about them. This is what happens when I don't Ravel stuff.

Pattern: Tatami and Minimalist cardigan
Yarn: Oxford Kitchen Yarns DK in latte/biscuit
Dates cast on: February 2008/April 2008
Dates last worked on: March 2008/April 2008
Target finish date: erm../July 2008
Sense of shame: justly felt





The observant amongst you might notice that these are knit from the same yarn. That's right, a bad case of pattern envy led to me and the yarn fooling around with the Minimalist cardigan behind the Tatami's back. What started out as a brief flirtation has developed into a full blown fling. I suspect that it's going to be curtains for the Tatami although not immediately. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a cheater always cheats. Despite only casting on the Minimalist cardigan on Thursday, by Saturday evening I had two fresh projects on the needles.

Yarn: Artesano Alpaca 4 ply (pattern tbc)
Date cast on: last Saturday
Date last worked on: last Sunday
Target finish date: July 2008
Sense of shame: none (it's for someone else)



I was on the look out for some soft red yarn for a scarf for my mum and this leapt out at me whilst at iknit on Saturday. This is still at the swatching stage. I've started off with the Little pyramids pattern but I need to block it and maybe try out a few others to see what will best suit the yarn.

Pattern: Hopscotch socks
Yarn: Regia 4 ply
Date cast on: last Saturday
Date last worked on: today
Target finish date: April 2008 (strictly speaking I only need to knit one as it's a test knit)
Sense of shame: mild



Although it is knit with brand new yarn bought at Liberty on Saturday (naughty) and knit on new needles as I couldn't wait to get home before casting on (v. bad) this project is somewhat redeemed by being the long postponed final test knit for my first real sock pattern. I finally sat down at the computer on Monday and typed out a good copy incorporating all Katie's comments and corrections and I'm carefully knitting through it now. One good thing about putting this off for so long is that I no longer know the pattern by heart so it should be a much better test knit than if I'd got around to it sooner. Thank goodness that there are some benefits to procrastination.

* Please note that I am but skimming the surface here. I don't actually have time to go through everything that's lying about in a neglected state in my "to do" pile.