Lavender and Lilacs

The light was bad, but I just had to get some photos of the Cabled Beaded Sock as it is right now, alongside the lavender and lilacs in my Mum's garden, cause that's just where I feel the colours are from!
It's a lovely pattern to knit, and very well written (Thanks, Lynette!) by LeTissier designs in British Columbia, Canada. It's my first attempt at knitting anything other than plain socks, and I LOVE how these are turning out!

Sadly, I've put them aside in the last Wednesday in a big hurry... My little sister, Lucy, was turning 24 on the Saturday, and we'd arranged to take her out for dinner on Sunday night. I figured, as I bought the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, that if I got stuck into the pattern right away (Humanity, by Denise Lotter - Rav. link), I should be able to get a couple of fingerless mitts done quite easily by Sunday. Especially during a trip to and from Sydney on Saturday, which gave me an additional two knitting hours.

So, it was decided. I cast on Wednesday afternoon and got all the way up to the start of the thumb gusset by Thursday afternoon (couldn't work on it Wednesday night - we were with Lucy for dinner!), and I resolved to have the gusset done during KnitNight Thursday evening. Maybe even right up to the cast-off point.

The bottom fell out of the plan right around now. I may have not been reading the instructions correctly, maybe I was distracted by chatting with everyone at KnitNight... but I cocked up the gusset, big time. The increases were messy and disorganised, and after I'd ploughed through the gusset (delusional, I know), I found I had way too many stitches. I tried ripping it back, but couldn't get the needles back in where they should be.

And, fighting back the urge to cut the whole damned thing up into tiny, tiny pieces and feed it to the cat, I frogged the whole bloody thing. Dianne noticed I was muttering to myself a lot that night! I fished around in my bag and pulled out an old faithful standby: Fetchings. I cast on (again) and set to work. *sigh*

Here's Lola-Frog, all dressed up and ready to go visiting friends in Sydney on Saturday. Recognise the top?
Yeah, it's her 'Rainbow Dress', shortened to be a top since she's not walking yet. The yarn is that cotton that I dyed months ago for her - it didn't quite knit up into the big stripes I'd envisioned, but I like it nonetheless, and it suits her little yellow daks. If I could change anything, I'd alter the shoulders a bit for her, this is knit in the two year-old size since she's such a Gigantor, so the shoulders are pretty wide for her.
I think she's laughing at me and those damned fingerless mittens.

More on those next post.

Publicity Knit

Another great evening out with the KnitNight crew. Here's a shot of at least half of us, knitting away for a photo to be sent in to a local glossy magazine. They're going to write a piece on us (cheers to Barb, who set this all up, consistently proving to us, 'It's not what you know, it's who Barb knows'!) to give us some publicity heading up to the World Wide Knit In Public Day for 2009.The rest of us were in photos on Barb's camera... We missed you, Dianne, Becca, Clare and Prue!

I managed to cast on for WonderBoy's Weasley Sweater, employing some maths inspired by Elizabeth Zimmermann's techniques to ensure a good fit...

After knitting the gauge swatch, I liked the tension that the needles gave the fabric (I'm using Bendigo Woollen Mills 'Rustic' 12ply in "Delta"), but the gauge was out by a couple of stitches per inch. So instead of fiddling with needle sizes, I worked out how many stitches I needed to cast on to get the same width, and off I went... feeling pretty proud of myself, but not proud enough to taunt the Knitting Fates. I'll keep measuring on WonderBoy as I go, with my fingers crossed!

Speaking of WonderBoy, he helped me to set out the sweater for photos of where I'm at right now... I think Captain Feathersword and the squeaking crocodile really set it off, don't you?
Ta daaaaa!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter, and was able to spend time with friends and family.

I'm forever knitting bobbles...

I've started a "Cables and Bobbles" square for the first of three April squares of Lola-Frog's 2009 blanket, and I'm quite enjoying it, really - I've never knit a bobble before, and I feel quite pleased with myself whenever one turns out okay.

I read an article in one of the knitting magazines Mum lent me a few days ago (and I can't for the life of me remember which one or where!!), where someone (who?) says that one should always stop to admire one's knitting often as you go, to make sure you're still enamoured with the project, also to remind yourself just how fabulously talented you are. I like this advice. I like to look down every few rows and marvel at the patterns emerging from the underside of the needle, like a document sliding from a printer... it just appears, as if by magic! But photos of the squares will be here when they're all completed and blocked. It gives me something to aim for.

However, there are photos of the Raspberry Clapotis! Sadly, the weather round these parts has been fantastic for crops, gardens and ducks; less so for outdoors knitting photography. So in the name of expediency, we shall make do with a chair near the window...... and one, just to show the rows of dropped stitches. I still can't believe how long it took to drop a stitch and have it ladder down a row in this yarn - I really had to work at each and every drop to get them to let go! Still, I think it's worked out very prettily, and I'm quite pleased with it. I think I shall wear it tonight to Knit Night.

Here's the Noro Striped Scarf, in its' infancy. I LOVE knitting this scarf, and it's just emerging so naturally and organically - I almost don't need to concentrate too hard now on the 1x1 rib, my hands have got used to working the stitches in this pattern. When Lola-Frog is having a lie and a kick on her mat, I sit next to her to knock off a few more rows while I'm chatting to her, and she's just... transfixed! She watches my hands so intently as I'm knitting this one, I'm beginning to think she'll be picking up her own needles before long!

What's the collective noun for a group of knitters?

A stitch of Knitters?

A skein of Knitters, perhaps. If anyone has any clever suggestions, please do suggest them! Incidentally, I looked up 'collective nouns' on Wiki and it turns out that geese in flight are referred to as a skein of geese! Interesting also to note that the collective noun for a group of women is a 'gaggle'. Is someone trying to insinuate something here??!

These women, however, are not geese:

Exciting times

I'm finally joining a Stitch n' Bitch!

I have, among several other knitters and crocheters local to the area, connected on Ravelry and decided to start meeting up for a weekly 'knit night' at a nearby RSL club. I'm very excited, and so pleased that we're also going to get the word out and try to get others to join in, too.

Big, big thanks go out to clovelly (Ravelry), who has gone to all the effort to moderate our Ravelry group, as well as researching and organising everything to make tonight's meetup possible! Hopefully I will be able to post with photos tomorrow.