FO: A Wee Bag

On Thursday lunchtimes a small group (read 'very small') of folks at the University meet to knit (most often)/crochet/spin, eat lunch, and chat. This Thursday, as I pulled my intended knitting (the second of the October colourwork socks) out of my bag, I realised I'd forgotten the pattern. Since the pattern starts with a non-standard toe, I clearly wasn't going to be working on that. Instead, I pulled out the tiny bit of spindle spun yarn I plied last month and a 4.5mm circular needle and started casting on some stitches. After a quick discussion with Calephetos I settled on the ubiquitous little drawstring bag, as inspired by Mooncalf and Eskimimi.

My yarn was approximately a worsted weight so I cast on just 28 stitches (I did try 40 but it looked suspiciously like it was trying to be a hat). By the end of lunchtime, I was quickly starting to look short on yarn so it wasn't long before I had "Saffie's A Wee Little Bag":

Here's what I did (approximately):

CO 28 stitches.
R1-4: Knit 4 rows of Stockinette in the flat.
R5: K2, twist the left needle 360^o (forward, under the work, and then back to the start), *K4, twist*, repeat starred section 5 more times, K2.

R6-8: Join in the round. Knit 3 rounds of Stockinette.

R9: *K2tog, yo*. Repeat starred section to end of round.

Continue in Stockinette until desired length. Join using three needle bind off.

Cute :)

PS - I'm not totally sure what to use this for. It could be a lavender bag (I do love lavender) but it also reminds me of those little bags worry dolls come in - not sure what I do with that thought though...

Spin-ach!

A few posts ago, I made a passing reference to my attendance at a handspun spinning workshop with the intention of dedicating a proper post to my adventures later on. It seems some time has passed, and some not-unrelated bits and bobs are wanting to make their way into the blog, so here goes...

8th October
My somewhat-disappointing birthday has just passed and I am wondering how to treat myself. I've been toying with trying wheel spinning (yarn not exercise) for a while so I meander through the Web looking vaguely for some sort of class or workshop. Having found a few options at both extremes of the UK (if only I leaved in Fife), I finally stumble across handspun and send an email to enquire.

11th October
A few emails go back and forth - I book myself in for the 30th of October (my next free weekend) and try not to get too excited.

30th October
Up before 7am to walk to the railway station. Despite catching the wrong train and forgetting to bring Gwenda's mobile number (and a set of knitting needles for my train project), I find my way OK and am collected from the station. It's just me for this workshop and we immediately start with the wheel - trying a bit of treddle-ing without anything else, before moving on to feed some yarn through to get hands and feet working together. It's all feeling a bit clumsy but we move on to getting started with some unwashed fleece nonetheless... all of a sudden hands and feet come together and I'm actually producing something that looks kind of OK. I seem to have a tendency for spinning thinly and I go through a period of constant breaks until I can keep up with myself. Love it!

Break for a yummy lunch - mushroom soup, baked potato and salad.

Back to the wheel to spin a tiny bit more. I'd moved onto a second bobbin before lunch so there's just a bit more spinning to do to get it looking about the same as the first one, then... plying! Skein the finished yarn and put it aside ready for a bath when it gets home. Next step is to go back to the start and look at preparing fibres. Spent a bit of quiet time teasing the fibre before Gwenda got out the carders and showed me how to card the fibre and form a rolag - do one more before... all done. :( Time to go home and wash that yarn!

And here it is...

It's unevenly spun but it's mine! I feel a wheel coming on

(I may have resolved this already - you'll just have to wait and see...)

Swap Shopping

The lovely Eskimimi has organised a knitting bloggers swap on Ravelry, and so I've been shopping...

£8.60 at Cocoon (plus about £3 for some new stitch markers for me, where do they all go?). And £12 at Fyberspates (and I was restrained and didn't buy anything for me at all).

At least as exciting as buying for me, I do hope my partner likes her treats. I've just a few more bits to get and then I can sit down and wrap them all as artfully as my talents allow!

Yummy Yarn

It's coming up for a year since I first discovered Eskimimi's blog, it's still fabulous and... as of today Eskimimi has launched her own hand-dyed yarn - it's awesome. She blogs about it here, and the shop is hosted by Etsy, here.

I've just bought this lovely yarn:

(image grabbed from Eskimimi's shop on Etsy)

Which is inspired by blue hydrangeas, the same flowers as in my wedding bouquet:

(photo by Tall Order Photography, flowers by Wedding Flowers by Catherine)

Love them both!

One Great Knitter (knitcroblo3)

Here's the third of my knitcroblo blog posts. Mimi asks...

"Write about a knitter whose work (whether because of project choice, photography, styling, scale of projects, stash, etc) you enjoy. If they have an enjoyable blog, you might find it a good opportunity to send a smile their way."

Well, I'm with mooncalfmakes here, Eskimimi's projects always offer me some inspiration. I love colour, and despite an obsession with smooshiness it is more often a colour that initially draws me to a yarn. Eskimimi's projects always use colour fantastically and her photographs really make the most of the colours too. I particularly love her Regnbue scarf and her two hot water bottles (shepherd, fish).

Other bloggers I love include the Yarn Harlot (neat projects and fun to read), Salihan Crafts (nice photography and really cute crocheted fruit) and French Press Knits (I will knit those slippers one day).

Check out other bloggers posts tagged with knitcroblo3 via Google.

An Inspirational Pattern (knitcroblo2)

Here's the second of my knitcroblo blog posts. Mimi asks...

"Blog about a pattern or project which you aspire to. Whether it happens to be because the skills needed are ones which you have not yet acquired, or just because it seems like a huge undertaking of time and dedication, most people feel they still have something to aspire to in their craft. If you don’t feel like you have any left of the mountain of learning yet to climb, say so!"

Towards the end of last year I started thinking about techniques I'd like to learn/test in my knitting. A blog post was started but never published, but it essentially came down to: socks every which way, colourwork, felting, entrelac. Those things pretty much all still stand. I'm not sure I have one pattern I particularly aspire to, but here are some ideas:

A blanket/afghan, perhaps the Ten Stitch Twist (flickr/ravelry), the Hemlock Ring Blanket (flickr/ravelry) or The Great American Afghan (amazon/ravelry). This is one of those staying-power aspirations. A felted bag, specifically the Calla Lily Bag (flickr/ravelry) from The Knitter's Book of Yarn. Something crochet, perhaps the Penguin Bowling set (flickr/ravelry) or perhaps not - anything crochet would be a challenge really. A garment or two - I'm hoping to start Melo (flickr/ravelry)one day soon, and eventually I'd love to knit a Sylvi (flickr/ravelry). Some more socks: I'd like to try toe-up for my next pair I think. Some more challenging lace.

Check out other bloggers posts tagged with knitcroblo2 via Google.

Knitcroblo

(image from this post at eskimimi knits)

Look out blogging world - starting Monday knitters and crocheters worldwide will be blogging about yarn, projects and all things fibre-related. The lovely Mimi is running the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - during which bloggers will post on a given topic each day. Full details can be found on her blog: here. I'm looking to use it as a good excuse to get blogging again :)

Lions and.... Oh My! That's super cute!

Found via Ruffled Feathers:

(Image by ElizabethD: blog/flickr)

There are few things for which I would say this (and even then, undoubtedly only online), but... OMW (oh my wow) that's cute!

It's Not About The Numbers...

...but this is a neat map of the UK showing which counties I've cached in (source: mygeocachingprofile.com). Looks like I mostly hide out in the North West/Midlands with two tiny forays outside... one to the North East (that was a flying visit to Newcastle travelling home from a camp one Sunday night) and one to the South East (that was a short stay in Guildford for Transformers).

[NOTE - This image will update over time so the text I write now may not match what you see]

As of today I have found 201 geocaches in two countries (the US and the UK).

In Which Saffy Combines Two of Her Favourite Things

Thanks to CastOn.com, I have become aware that I have unwittingly earned a number of Cast On Knitting Scout badges! So, here are my achievements so far...

1) The Proselytize Knitting Badge - "A requirement for all Knitting Scouts, the recipient must do his or her bit to present knitting in a positive light, whilst at the same time avoiding all references to “hipness”, grandmothers, and yoga."

Here's hoping I do a good job of this, at various points I think non-knitting people I know have thought the particular project I was playing with was kinda cool. Many of my Guides thought the fingerless mitts I did were really clever (they weren't) and were insisting I should sell them (Um... right).

Incidentally... I didn't know the word proselytize; it means to convert someone's faith. I don't think I've got that far yet.

The “MacGyver” Badge (Level One) - The recipient must demonstrate clever use of a non-knitting tool in a knitting-related scenario. For instance, recipient has used paper clips as stitch markers, or successfully whittled and then utilized bamboo skewers as dpns.

On the canal holiday this year I tried to turn some of my waste yarn into a little scarf for Pengi (a small stuffed penguin, of course). I wanted a looser gauge than I could acquire with the one circular needle I'd brought with me (in the days of project monogamy), so I used a pen lid as a knitting needle. (One assumes I used something else too, not much knitting could have been done with only one pen-lid needle - I can't remember what filled the gap).

The I've Knit Items With No Conceivable Practical Application Badge - Recipients are those “special” campers who have knit items which somehow missed the mark of their intended application. There are probably more who are deserving of this badge than one would expect.

Undoubtedly awarded following completion of this:


This was my 'Big Baby' project. A but-what-is-it pattern that would have been a bib in the right yarn. It was mostly intended as a fixing-my-twisted-purls project but I was originally hoping for something out of it. It's now a small cat mat, it bears closer resemblance to that than it could ever have done to a bib. Molly's rather fond of it.

Also deserving of an honorable mention are these:

The Yancy baby hat with gauge so tight it would reduce a baby's heat to slush and the Exfoliate face cloth that would leave little face behind. Oops.

'If at first you don't succeed', or 'why I'm not renewing my subscription to Let's Knit!'

Started over on my Fair Isle project on Friday. Not for any reason related to the fact that this is my first such project or through any other error on my part. My gauge was spot on, I'd spotted some glaring errors in the charts before I got to them and things were altogether going quite well, until... I let someone who wasn't me try the item on. I am a rather small person and the item in question is a gift for a normal sized person. Much like anything I knit from this particular magazine, the item was correctly sized in one direction (in this case, length) but not in the other (width).

Ripped back the whole thing, made a few adjustments to the pattern to fix the sizing issue (I hope, I haven't got that far yet) and took the opportunity to fix the roll on the stocking stitch edge. I've also redrawn the chart without the mistakes (finding another three incorrectly drawn stitches as I did) and with the colours inverted so the white boxes represent the lighter yarn and the dark boxes the darker yarn. I couldn't get this online chart maker to play nicely enough not to drive me mad so ended up drawing the chart in a combination of editors (GIMP, MSPaint and Paintshop - a Mac imitation of MSPaint). Very pleased with the finished result but time consuming, so the lovely Hobnob is making me my own in-browser chart maker; he is good to me :)

Anyway, here is the reincarnated Fair Isle as it stands at bedtime this evening (or yesterday evening, I'm not sure how I refer to a time that has quite clearly passed me by - I blame Hobnob, he's in the coding groove).

You're Never Fully Dressed Without...

It seems the Hobo man and the Dapper Dan could have solved all their dressing problems in one with the happiness hat:

(happiness hat from Lauren McCarthy on Vimeo)

"... a servo motor moves a metal spike into the head inversely proportional to the degree of smile."

(source Lauren McCarthy.com via sknitter)

So, as they say on the radio, "Smile darn ya, smile!"

Wooly Bullies

Someone mailed this to the KnitCafe mailing list this weekend. It made me giggle :)



Which reminds me, I really must try harder with crochet. I'll never get the hang of it if I keep just knitting things instead :)

Eskimimi Knits

Just spent too much time reading this blog of a local knitter. Here are my highlights...

19th September 2009:

Seasalt, an ethical clothing store in Cornwall, UK are taking donations of handknit scarves to sell in their store. All proceeds will go to the Bumblebee Conservation trust. Scarf donations should be mailed to:

Kathryn Wild
Seasalt
1 Church Street
Falmouth
Cornwall
TR11 3DN

First 'batch' of scarfs will go on sale at the start of October.


11th September 2009:

Super-useful gift tags to help your recipients look after their new hand-knits.


9th September 2009:

Craft your own sock blockers. Much better than previous suggestions I've seen (anyone want to speculate as to the likelihood that I can bend two wire coat hangers even vaguely similarly?). I particularly like the double-ended suggestion.


3rd September 2009:

Neat little pine-tree chart for a pair of Christmas socks she was knitting.


29th August 2009:

Oh man, this is so yummy. A beautiful little scarf I now *have* to knit.


Now, go and spend the rest of your afternoon reading knitty blogs instead of doing any work - and start with Eskimimi!

Plastiknits

Knitting with carrier bags? Well, if I'm ever short of yarn...

(image from cocoknits tutorial on how to cut up the plastic bag for knitting)

Actually, this might make a cute Guide activity. I'll add it to my list of cool projects. I wonder if there are some good examples on Ravelry.... Answer, yes - of course. The Morehouse ones don't seem to have made it onto Ravelry but their are plenty of results for "plastic bag" and "plastic recycled" most of which are variations on this kind of theme.

Why considerate parking is a must:

See here.

Via mental_floss which has some gems today.

"God, that's Good!"

I've blogged about this before when I first heard, but I've once again been reminded about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film. Found these fantastic concept images via comingsoon.net via That's No Moon via Kards Unlimited. As an aside - I do like Kards Unlimited... if I was buying books over in the US they would be my first port of call, I've bought a few cute cards from them though and maybe I'll check their more oddball stuff out at least once more before I leave :)

Back to Tim Burton... whilst it may not be my nostrils "aquiver and tingling" I'm still quite excited about this film. And indeed, any Tim Burton really (especially if it included the ever-lovely Johnny Depp - that man should have a little "Eat Me" label all of his own).

(Image from ComingSoon.net - check it out on their site, these mini versions do not do them justice. Also, see more Alice in Wonderland concept art in their original post here and a slightly earlier post here)

And what a luscious green that is for the background - reminds me of the Burly Spun (in Kiwi) I've just cast on for my French Girl Knits cardigan (not the one in the any of the pictures on that page but if you click additional images, the one I'm knitting is the top-left image on the page labeled 5-8). Mmmm... yummy!

Friday Fill-In

This week's Friday Fill In:

1. I grew up thinking in black and white, but there are many shades of grey and it's far too easy to be judgemental.

2.Django was the last website I was at before coming here (and before that it was Ravelry... you'd never know I was working).

3. Why don't you treat yourself this weekend? I'm not sure what to, but you'll find something - maybe I will too!

4. Knitting helps me relax (but only when it's not bringing stress of its own, in those cases reading is a better bet).

5. Thanks for the comments, they're always lovely.

6.People hovering around you as you are very off-putting. I always assume they're going to judge the way I'm doing whatever it is.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to finishing up another glove and planning my tomorrow, tomorrow my plans include some sort of adventure, who knows where to and Sunday, I want to have made it to 50 geocaches... 6 more to go!

Early to Bed... Mostly

With everyone in the UK safely in bed by around 8pm Pittsburgh time, it's been really nice to just go to bed when I'm tired, without any distractions (noone to say 'Oh, but my routing algorithm nearly works, looklooklook'). And mostly, I've been in bed, ready to sleep, not later that 10:30pm. Except on two occasions - one tonight, and one some weeks ago - what was I doing on those occasions? Watching YouTube.

Why??? The last time was Legally Blonde the musical - I spotted it in someone's Facebook status and over the course of the evening sat down and watched the whole thing (in 18 parts). Was it any good? It got better as the show progressed certainly, I actually thought it was kind of sweet. And given I didn't think much to the film at all - this was definitely much better. I've actually put the CD on my Amazon wishlist (is this something I should be confessing to? I'm not sure).

So what was I watching tonight? Britain's Got Talent. Again prompted by Facebook status messages, this time lots of them, all talking about Holly Steele. Started out watching Holly's audition, and then went back to the start of the playlist her video was in and seemed to be watching a selection of highlights from the episodes. I'm up to episode six so far and will save the rest for another day. Here's my favourite:



Oh my!

Happy Socks

So, I've been knitting some more socks. Sadly, the ones I was knitting when I last talked socks have turned out to be somewhat too small now that I've reached the foot (there is absolutely no hope of me getting them over my heels) and I've put them on hold until I can find the courage to rip them all the way back and start over. In the meantime, I've started on this pattern in this rather colourful Wendy Happy (colourway is Virgo). The yarn is bamboo based, rather than wool based and so it's a great yarn for my Hobnob, who chose the colour and the pattern.


Having started with the original 80 stitches, the sock was clearly huge. Adjustment to 70 stitches still seemed a little big so having fiddled a bit I took 64 as my best guess and off I went. Two pattern repeats in, all seemed to be going well, however I've just tried the sock on to photograph it for Ravelry (as demonstrated above) and I am somewhat concerned that it may now be too small. Grrr... fingers crossed?