Back in business - and a contest!

After four weeks of not being able to do much of anything thanks to having my left arm in a sling, I am back in business! Already, I have finished a little something that goes around a can my orchid is currently living in; the can is a little wider than the pot for the orchid, so the pot goes in about half way and leaves the other half for water to accumulate so the roots aren't drenched. This is important for orchid cultivation. I used up the last of some yarn I got last year, and then finished with some completely different stuff, just for drama. Ravelled here.

I promised a picture of the hood I made. I took a pattern and modified it, then took some plastic wiring and fed it through the bit that frames the face. It ended up looking very different to how I imagined, but given the circumstances in which I will be using it, I'm not too bothered. Other pictures can be found on the Ravelry project page.

I subscribe to a site that has probably several thousand crochet patterns for free. They send me emails with some of the most popular every day, and there's also the odd contest. Right now, they're running a contest for free yarn. If you would like to enter, the link to the blog is here!

I'm currently working on a baby shrug for a friend, and a stole that I think I might give to my sister. Lots of exciting projects coming up, so watch this space for more!

I recently bought a new cloak for larp. It didn't have a hood, but I bought it at an IC shop, using IC money, so it was essentially free. I decided I would make a hood, and found a pattern on Ravelry. I haven't been able to get a picture yet, as taking pictures of the back of one's own head is difficult.

Not too long after I finished this hood, I fell and fractured my shoulder. I'll be out of commission for awhile, so don't expect to hear from me. Pics to come when I can manage.

Olympic Pillow

I have a new project. In my copy of The Knitter for this month, there was an article about an initiative to make cushions out of British Wool for Olympic and Paralympic athletes coming to the London Games. The link can be found here. I already had 100g of Ronaldsay wool that I picked up at Fibre Flurry in 2010, but needed a total of 250. Katherine and I had been talking about going around the various yarn stores in Exeter anyway, so I took that opportunity to look for some appropriate wool. At one of them, I found wool from locally raised sheep - perfect! The breeds were Hebridean and Shetland, the colours brown and black respectively. The light grey is the Ronaldsay. It's Ravelled here

I'm quite pleased with how this is going. The yarn is aran, and knits up fairly quickly; I've not been knitting quickly as my elbow is still bothering me somewhat, but I've had it a little over a week and have done one 16x16" side. Once I do the other side, I will be able to send it off to be stuffed - the stuffing has been donated and there don't seem to be any stuffing events in my area. I have plenty of time, since they want all cushions submitted by the end of March.

In case anyone was wondering, I finished the hat from my last post. It turned out pretty well.


I've been doing some spinning as well. Once I get the yarn plied, I'll put it up here. That's all for now!

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.