Endings and Beginnings

I have been very busy lately. You see, I have just moved house - from Bristol to Exeter! It is a whole new stage in my life, as I am leaving behind the home I lived in for over six years and my husband of almost five to live with a friend and try my hand at the single life again. It's kind of bittersweet; it was his choice to break up, and yet I find myself looking forward to taking this step in my life and seeing what I can make of myself.

Enough philosophy! I was going to write about the projects I've been working on during the move. I only got the boxes from the removal company a few days before I was due to move out, so I ended up packing up everything in about a three day period. I kept aside a few small projects that I was trying to get finished, and the first off the needles was Elorne, by Woolly Wormhead. This hat grabbed my attention immediately, with it's fun little cables and yarnovers right next to them, which give it a interesting air. I didn't want it to be very slouchy though, so I cut back on the 2 inch brim you're supposed to knit, and then cut down on the pattern repeats. Alas! My bad luck with hats continues, as it seems to be a little small. It fits my head, but just barely, and doesn't really look very good. I'm currently blocking it now in the hopes of stretching it a bit. If it doesn't, I'll be adding some crocheted rows on around the brim. Below is a picture of it blocking - stretched around a plate. It is the only way I have found of blocking hats without buying some expensive piece of kit to do it.

I used the Grace Hand-Beaded yarn that I talked about in a previous post. It turned out to be pretty nice to use, with the slight drawback that the end was knotted to keep the last bead in place, so joining the yarn was a bit... interesting. Still, I love the yarn and was really pleased working with it. It turns out to be a bit of a pain to frog though, since the beads get in the way - something to remember.

My next project had to wait until I was in the new house. I spent a few days unpacking, and then went straight to work, finishing off something that has been on my needles for over a year now. I started this with the intention of using it to get used to Rowan's Kidsilk Haze. I plan on using this amazing yarn to make Ice Queen, a rather intricate and beaded creation. I didn't want to bead the yarn until I was used to it, and had an extra ball going, so I decided to just make two things. The pattern is Party Lace Scarf (Ravelled here) and it took me forever to get it finished. I had trouble getting used to the yarn, and would put it down after only a few rows, then not pick it up again for ages. This week I decided I was going to have it done by the time the weekend was over, and so I sat down and did it. I spent from Thursday morning to Sunday morning knitting, and have gotten it washed and blocking this afternoon. It'll be ready to come off the boards tomorrow morning. Do you like my pink blocking boards? They are just multi-purpose interlocking mats I got off ebay. I had to put three together to block this 61" scarf. It's as long as I am tall!

My project for the next few days will be to finish off a pair of socks that I started sometime last year as well. The Spring Forward socks from the ezine Knitty are fun to knit, but get a bit tedious, so I had to take (what turned out to be a very long) break from making them. My memory seems to be saying Christmas knitting got in the way of that, as well. With my recent success in making socks, I'm going to finish this second one before I stop feeling good about them. Then it will be on to a cardigan, or a shawl, or a stole or... oh, so many things I want to make! 

Socks: Round 2

I have a love-hate affair with socks. At the beginning of 2011, I said to myself that I was going to learn to knit socks, and I did. By May, I had decided that I was going to make socks for my family for Christmas. By August, I knew that I was never going to make another pair again, because every pair I tried to make ended up not fitting in the heel.

That is, until I was contacted by a good friend of mine, who offered me a commission. My first commission. He wanted a pair of good warm socks, knee socks. This guy has been really nice to me, and I didn't want to say no, so I didn't. Instead, I started poking around, trying to find a heel that would fit better. In my research, I found out why the socks I had made in the past didn't fit me; I was making a heel flap instead of a short row heel. There's a difference? Apparently so. I also learned that for this friend, making the socks with the aformentioned heel flap would be better. I told him I would do it, and have set to work. The project is Ravelled here. I'm using a pattern called Thuja from Knitty, and heavily modified it to make it more suitable for knee high socks. The yarn is King Cole Merino Blends, a superwash merino that is really nice to work with. It's not quite as soft as the other merinos I've worked with, but I'm putting that down to the superwash. The colours are really nice, and have knitted up quite nicely. I originally bought three balls of the stuff, then panicked and bought another two more in case three wasn't enough. Looking at it now that I'm half done, I think three is actually going to be ok, but I'm tempted to keep the other two just because the yarn was a good price and is really nice stuff in colours I tend to enjoy knitting in. As for the commission, I don't expect to get much more than what will cover my expenses, what with buying 5 balls of yarn and sock blockers, but I'm not in this for the money (at least, not yet!)

Grace

Alas for my knitting addiction! Just when I thought it was safe to start knitting again, I find that I have pushed my still-healing elbow to hard, and it has gone back to excruciating pain. Luckily, I got a present made for my FIL, which is what I felt I really had to get done, so now I'm going to have to hang up my needles up for another several weeks and hope this time my elbow heals properly. I'm really quite sad, as I have so many exciting things on the needles right now, including a hat made out of Louisa Harding's new hand-beaded yarn, Grace. I love this yarn. With more yardage than the Artyarns hand-beaded and sequened range, and a quarter the price, it's a very attractive yarn from a financial angle. Add the range of colours and the fact that it's more readily available in the UK, and you have a winner.

Yarn Review: Because I can't knit right now

I have been banned from knitting. It's a self-inflicted ban, at the behest of my left elbow, which is currently suffering from an RSI. I haven't knitted since the pain started, and while I tried a little crochet, I soon realised that I twist my arm far too much to be allowed that either. Spinning seems to be ok in small amounts, but it still hurts three weeks later, so I'm going on a yarn-fast. I did make some interesting yarn this past week. I got a mixed bag of colours that included blues and purples, greens and yellows. One of the green/yellow colours was multicoloured with white, so that's where the white comes into this ball. I spun the different colours, then plied them all together. It's three plies, but measures up as more of a worsted weight. They're not colours I would wear, but the yarn will be nice to knit with (it's merino) and might be nice for one of the men in my life, or one of the women who's colour palette doesn't tend toward the blues and purples I usually buy.

Since I can't show you any of the things I've finished recently, I thought I would review a few of the yarns I have WIPs going with. Most of my yarns come from independent dyers, who take luxury fibres such as merino, silk, camel and cashmere and dye them amazing colours. While I like and appreciate cheaper yarns such as acrylics, I was drawn to the finer things for the first few years of yarn buying. Then, I found Sirdar Simply Recycled.


I fell in love. This stuff is half acrylic, half cotton, and is £2 a ball. It comes in a DK weight, and has a very generous 142 yards per 50 grams. It has enough cotton that it keeps the cotton characteristics, and the acrylic is a nice acrylic, unlike some of the horrible stuff you find in those big box stores (Michaels or Hobbycraft, for example.) While it is a little splitty, it's not so bad as some of the pure cotton or other plant fibres (bamboo, are you listening to me?) that I've worked with. It drapes nicely and is great for most temperatures. I've bought a bunch of it and worked with it enough to know that I will buy a bunch more. The only downside to this yarn is the fact that the colours are fairly limited. Sirdar, we want more colours!

The Natural Dye Studio has always been at the top of my list for yummy yarns. I like several of theirs, including their 100% silk laceweight and their BFL range. This review will be for their Angel, which is a mix of  alpaca, silk and cashmere. It's probably the softest yarn I've ever held, and the silk in it makes the colours more vivid than they would otherwise be, but not too bright. This yarn comes in laceweight, 5-ply and DK and is pretty standard for yardage, with 262 yards per 100 grams in the DK. What sells this yarn for me is the colour. The husband-wife team behind NDS do amazing work, and everything is environmentally friendly. They're based in the UK as well, so buying from them makes me feel like I'm being green.

My final yarn for this review is Sublime's Organic Merino DK. I find the idea of a wool yarn being organic a bit funny, but I guess it means that the sheep the fibre comes from eat only organic grass. This in turn is better for the sheep, so they produce nicer wool. That's the hypothesis, anyway. Awhile back, my LYS had a sale on it, and I got 10 skeins for a steal, then bought a few extra in anticipation of making a large wrap thing. I started on the wrap, and quickly found out that the yarn didn't suit it at all. Said wrap was all cables and the merino just kind of lost the cabling in a lot of fluff. It didn't look anywhere near what it should have. I ripped it back, and eventually decided to get the yarn out again for a cardigan. While I've had all kinds of trouble with the cardi, I do love the yarn. It's soft and warm and the colours are muted. It's a pleasure to work with. The yardage isn't as generous as the Sirdar,  at 113 yards per 100 grams. For some reason, I thought this was discontinued, but the Ravelry page says nothing about it, and no one else seems to think it is, so I'm going on the basis that it's still widely available.

So far behind!

I know. I know. I haven't posted for aaages. That's mostly because I haven't really been up to much craft wise. I've had a lot of problems with pain getting in the way of the work, and have had far to many evenings distracted by writing for the play by email I'm involved with. Having not written for something like 2 years and thinking I was never going to be able to again, it's nice to find that lack of concentration, memory, and overall unhealthyness of my brain doesn't mean I can't write. I've been making up for lost time as a result.

Unfortunately, this means my Christmas knitting has fallen way behind schedule. In an effort to fix that sorry state of affairs, I've decided to crochet a few gifts instead of knitting them, and plan on buying some presents as well instead of making something for everyone in my family. With any luck, I'll get all the presents on my list finished, but only time will tell for certain.

First, a few ta-das! I made a few snoods for wearing as one of my larp characters. The setting for this larp is Regency England, with a smattering of fey and magic thrown in, as well as a bit of steampunk. As snoods were often worn during this time, I figured making a few would be nice and fun. I made a blue one first to go with the dress I had intended to wear as the character, and then at the event things happened that meant my character changed costume - and began to show a hidden side that I hadn't really thought out in character creation, so I made a black

one after the event to go with her new costume.
I'm very pleased with how they both turned out. The pattern is by Brigids Hearth and is in her blog. She is a fabulous designer, and I'm using her pattern for armwarmers to make gifts for my Mom and sister Laura, as they have both requested armwarmers. I've also made the armwarmers for myself.

In addition to knitting things for larp, I've also been working on a scarf for my Dad. I had no clue what I was going to make him, so when I decided to do some crocheted projects, I first looked around for something for him. I found this really easy pattern for a scarf, and had some yummy microfibre yarn that was in mannish colours, so I took hook to yarn and came out several days later with something quite nice. It was crocheted long way, and I wasn't happy with how long it was. I had intended to pick up the stitches on the short side and make it longer by adding a fancy end to the short ends, but I had trouble picking up the stitches and figuring out how to crochet them, and was tired of messing with it, so I simply fringed it instead. While I like how it looks and the colours, I wasn't happy with the yarn. It was extremely splitty and a pain to work with. I'm sure it wouldn't have been any easier trying to knit it. After I finished the scarf, I crocheted a Christmas ornament, as that's what my Grandma asked for as a birthday present. Her birthday is next week, so I had to get it done and in the mail asap.

Now I've just got to get cracking and knit as much as I can. I have to take frequent breaks because of the pain, but I still love knitting, so it's worth it.

Yarn!

I have been spinning. I had a bunch of little tops of about 20 grams each, given to me when I first expressed an interest in spinning with a spindle this past spring. One is a black shetland, another a white shropshire, and two are blue and purple merino. They were a nice little project I could do in an evening, so for the last few days I have been spinning them, and decided based on length that I would ply together the white, blue and purple, and ply the black with itself.




As it turns out, I had a little more blue and purple than I had white, so I did a little bit of those two colours as well as a skein of the three. They all turned out to be really pretty. I will say that I loooove spinning merino as much as I love knitting with it. It's so soft and gorgeous.  The shropshire was also pretty nice, but the shetland has spun up very coarse. It feels a lot like the aran yarn I've been working with from Sheepfold Aran. The aran is known for its felting properties, so I imagine this might felt well also. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to make with the yarn yet, but when I know I'll be sure to post it here.

I'm very pleased with how much better my yarn is looking. It's getting to the point where I can do create yarn that's pretty even, for the most part. They aren't kidding when they say practice pays off.

Working up a storm

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I've gotten over the problems with my thumb now, and am in the process of working my fingers off to make up for the 3 week lack. First, I decided I'd get back into knitting with a simple little pouch. I'm going to be starting up larp (live action role play) again in October after a 4 year break. A few months ago, I had decided that I was never going back because of my health, so I sold or gave away all my stuff. I don't have tons of extra money to buy more, so I decided to make some things. I started a crocheted bottle holder, but crochet was still a little painful, so I started a knitted belt pouch instead. Using some yarn that will felt nicely, I knitted up a little bag, then decided to make one for my friend Katherine Last as well. She chose red for her colour, so it's being made from a Cascade 220 skein that I've had floating around for awhile now. I've also promised Peter Godfrey one, which will be black and white and not felted.

I did eventually get that water bottle holder done, a few days after my pouch. It's all chain and single crochet, so it's very easy and quick to make up. I had thought I might attach a loop to it so it will go on a belt too, but I'm worried the weight of a water bottle might pull the belt down, so I might just put it on a strap like the pattern has.

I've also done some more work on a shrug I'm making, and almost have that finished. I don't have any pictures yet, so I'll blog about that more later when it's done.

Last, but certainly  not least, is the spinning. Spinning hurt my hand after both knitting and crochet ceased to, so it was the last I got back into after the injury. I was running low on the BFL I had been practising with, so I sat down one day and spun the rest of that, then over the course of that and the next day plied it. One thing I've noticed with this particular fibre is that it's very, very fluffy. When I was spinning it, little bits of it would refuse to spin and just be piles of fluff attached to a nice bit of spun yarn. There were also places it just would not spin nicely, and was really quite underspun. It's funny, because on the spindle and on the wheel I tried before, I was overspinning. I've since played a bit with the tension on my wheel and figured out how to spin it more evenly, but for this fibre, it turned out to be very thick-thin, with bits that weren't even spun very well in there. It makes for a very strange looking finished project. It's still on the bobbin; I really need to wind it off and wash it, but I was so eager to get started on this lovely blue stuff that I left it, and haven't gotten back to it in the few days since. Isn't it gorgeous though? I was buying fibre at Forest Fibre and saw this and just *had* to get it. It's a combination of merino and silk (80/20%) and is proving just divine to spin with. It's not quite so fluffy as the BFL, but I think that may be down to the fact that it's dyed. I'm enjoying working with it more than the BFL though. I wish I'd gotten more than 100g. I've already done 50, and can't wait to do the other 50.  Tomorrow, I will start spinning the rest, then ply it. Already, it's more even than my last batch of spinning, with no little fluffy bits to mar the look of the final product. I'm planning to make a hat out of it. It looks just as stunning spun as it does in fibre form:

I shall leave you with this amazing image.