Felting, felting, la-la-la-la felting...

Well, here goes nothing!

Gigantor, the Christmas Stocking that threatened to eat Paris, is currently residing in the washing machine, hopefully being felted down to a more manageable size. It's always a bit of a hairy experience, felting; you just don't really know what's going to come out the other end.

Let's recap the 'Stocking' story from the beginning, shall we?

Back in November, when I thought I was leaving myself plenty of time to knit and felt a stocking (hey, it's knit in the round, on large needles - how could it not go quickly??). I cast on a few times, each time adding more stitches when I thought it might shrink too much in the felting process. So we went from 64 stitches, to 72 stitches, to 128 and then finally to 188 (I was tired of casting on and counting over and over again).

I knit in the round for awhile and then started the fair isle pattern, convincing myself that it would not be too big (because of course, there is no 'too big' in felting - is there?), until I got to this point:I continued on, past the fair isle and into the solid colour, which I thought I would just zoom along on... I turned the heel - if you can call it that when you're trying to put a heel into a doona cover!

Once I'd passed the heel and the gusset decreases, I ventured back into solid colour territory and began to slow down. And I mean really slow down. Anything was better than hauling out the gargantuan sock. Pete started to crack jokes about needing to bring it on a trailer when I knit in the car, and my lap was getting too warm as I sat to knit of an evening.I began to doubt the stocking. I asked Pete his opinion (and got more jokes in response!) and I seriously considered ripping the whole lot back and winding up whatever yarn I could salvage from the whole experience. But curiosity (and laziness) got the better of me and I continued to knit on the behemoth every night.

I finally grafted the final stitches a couple of nights ago and wove the ends in, resulting in this:Here are a few to demonstrate the 'actual' size of this ridiculously enormous stocking...Yes, Lola-Frog fits inside the stocking. Just like a sleeping bag. The reverse of the fair isle looks pretty neat though, doesn't it?And so today, with my heart in my mouth, I crammed it into a hot wash cycle and crossed my fingers. Let's go and see what we've been left with, shall we?Well... it's not as big anymore, I suppose... but I'm a bit disappointed in the way the fair isle really doesn't show up at all... and in the size discrepancy between the width of the leg and the length of the toe. I either should have cast on fewer stitches, or made the toe quite a bit longer... but all that said, it's felted into some good strong fabric, and it'll hold gifties from Santa - that's the main thing!

Finished Emergency Birthday Mitts, and Guerilla Knitting

No, not THAT sort of Gorilla!

hehe... couldn't resist such a stupid joke! That was taken a couple of weeks ago on a family day trip to Taronga Zoo, in Sydney. Here I am, with my monkey offspring...

At any rate, I meant to keep going with the Tale of the Emergency Fingerless Mitts. Gather round, chill'n, and hear my story! What was I up to? Oh, yeah. Crapping out on the Humanity Mitts on the Thursday, and casting on a new pair of Fetchings that night instead... I managed to get the pair finished by Sunday lunchtime, even with them being a little longer than your usual pair of Fetchings, and with my improvised new thumb, which would have taken up more yardage than usual. My sister seemed pretty happy with them:and so I hope that these will see plenty of use next year when the weather gets colder again! I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, which was just delightfully soft to knit with. It felt lovely to try the mitts on as I was going... maybe I'll knit me a pair one day!

And now, on to Guerilla Knitting. I happened upon an example of Guerilla Knitting in my home town of Bowral, a couple of weeks ago, in the main 'plaza'. I think this is reclaimed Sari silk, knit into a post warmer, featured here with Wonderboy.I do think it's pretty cool, but a big part of me is ticked off that I didn't get to do it first...

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.

Quickie 'finished' post - now with added photos!

Wow – a whole month without a blog post! Instead of trying to explain, as always, why I haven’t added any posts through September, I thought I’d look at it positively. I enjoyed a month-long blogging holiday!!

On the up side, I have a heap of knitting that I have actually completed. Blocked and photographed!

‘Fetchings’ are done, knit in Jo Sharp Silk Road Tweed in Aran weight. I liked knitting with this stuff, it’s got a lovely cushy, rustic feel to it - sort of like knitting with something a little bit felted already. The yarn was still able to highlight the cabling in the Fetchings quite well. I gave them to my dear friend Ali last weekend, as a very very late birthday gift - she's moving to Adelaide very soon for a year. Does is get cold down there in winter??

Okay, so at this point the ends weren't woven in, so they weren't 'finished' in the legal sense, but WonderBoy looked so cute modelling them that I couldn't resist using these photos to showcase them!

I feel like I'm on top of Lola-Frog's blanket squares, with all of August and one of September done and blocked here. I've also done the last two for September and the first for October, but they're either not blocked or not 'finished' (ie ends woven in) and blocked. I'll get there.

August Square The First;

August Square The Second (the Apple is to signify both Lola-Frog's first solid food as well as to have a Beatles reference within the blanket without resorting to anything gauche and obvious);

August Square The Third, and

September Square The First.

Another finished object still yet to be blocked (and I must do it this week, Dianne was asking to see it last Thursday at KnitNight) is a lovely chunky cabled scarf for a friend who is definitely going somewhere cold - New York - in November. Photos to come soon.

One of the reasons I've not blogged lately (and I've just now realised this) is because of all the spinning I was doing! That, and we got our hands on 'The Beatles: Rockband' game...

You go, Ringo!

...and both these pursuits have taken up considerable portions of spare time. I've spun up 200g of lovely naturally fawn-coloured merino roving that my mum brought back from Tasmania for me a long time ago now.

I have to say, now having spun with both raw fleece and prepared roving, that I find spinning with the pre-prepared fibres much more satisfying - in a totally instant gratification kind of way. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee once said that to learn how to spin well, you should start with good quality fibres. I think that since I'm certainly no professional at cleaning and preparing raw fleece, I certainly wasn't learning with anything approaching 'good quality' fibre, and this was affecting my ability to focus on the spinning itself. Plus, I'm an impatient person at the best of times. Who can wait for fleece to be cleaned and prepared properly when there's spinning to be getting on with?!

Photos to come, as well as a new idea I've been tinkering with to reintroduce some fresh 'randomness' into the blog...

Meret photo - of sorts

I finally managed to have a photo taken of me whilst wearing the Meret on the weekend... just the one. And it doesn't really show it terribly well! I should ask Pete to take a couple of photos from the back...WonderBoy seems keen, though.

And in other news, I shall hark back to the completion of Lola-Frog's June Squares. I'm not terribly happy with the 'R' square. The stranding was pulled waaaay too tight, resulting in this; top left of the heart:I contemplated snipping the strands and eaving the ends in, but... apathy reigned.

As much as I feel I want to get started on the first of the three July squares, I'm in the middle of knitting Mum's birthday present. Called 'Sea Wool Scarf', I got the pattern from 'Yarn Forward Magazine' after Mum admired Barb's at WWKIP.

Trouble is, though - because I've got a deadline (Mum's birthday is next Wednesday), I've found that I'm finding good excuses not to get on with it. Ugh! It's like having an itch that you can't get rid of even though you're scratching... as you continue on, it's getting progressively more irritating even though you're doing all you can to alleviate it. Must be all in my mind.

Not unlike Rob & Mick of Shitscared fame:

"With his miiiind!"

Stuff I like this week...

A big mug of hot chocolate: Always good before going to the gym.
Opening my first birthday present at 12.20am - hey, it was technically my birthday then! I can't wait to try making some of these little dresses for Lola-Frog!'Yes, Minister' and 'Yes, Prime Minister': I'm getting right back into these series; Pete bought me the complete collection for Christmas last year since I like to have half-hour TV shows ready to watch while breastfeeding. Best quotes?

"Politician's logic: We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do it."

"A somewhat unorthodox procedure means The act of a gibbering idiot."

Hacker: "Do we ever get our own way with the French?"

Humphrey: "Sometimes."

Hacker: "When was the last time?"

Humphrey: "Battle of Waterloo, 1853."

My new Noro Striped Scarf: Yes, I was that crazy lady draping a scarf on a lilac tree outside this morning wearing Cookie Monster pyjamas. Wanna make something of it?White dudes dancing: I love this filmclip so much, I showed it to WonderBoy yesterday and he laughed himself silly. I always found Christopher Walken to be somewhat scary, but not after seeing 'Weapon of Choice'. Or 'Hairspray', for that matter...Being lucky enough to be spoilt for choice: Will I cast on Woolly Wormhead's 'Meret' for myself? Will I cast on another baby-sized 'Unoriginal Hat' by Yarn Harlot for a friend's bub? Will I cast on Lola-Frog's third June square?

James May's Plasticine garden in this year's Chelsea Garden Show in London. I think what i like best about it was the outcry it caused in the Establishment. But Stephen Fry liked it, and that's good enough for me. Top Gear UK, and by extension, James May totally rock.My lovely new Fetchings: Thank you so much, Barb! They're lovely and soft and beautifully warm to wear - I'll be sporting them tomorrow for the World Wide Knit In Public!

The Weasley Sweater, and other completed works

WonderBoy's Weasley Sweater (say that ten times fast!) has been complete for a couple of weeks now, but I have had so little time online except to check my Facebook, I just haven't got round to blogging properly! I don't like blogging if I can't put a little time into each post.

We've been really busy at KnitNight these last few weeks, preparing for World Wide Knit in Public Day, which is the day after tomorrow. We decided to set ourselves up in a cafe, outdoors in a local plaza for as much 'publicity' as possible. It's going to be cold, but we figure it'll mean we can wear as many of our lovely warm handknits as possible! As part of our knitting in public, we're going to use the opportunity to collect some money for a very worthwhile charity, Father Chris Riley's Youth Off The Streets. We have knit dozens of wee coffee-cup-cozies to give out in exchange for each donation we receive, so we've been knitting away madly on these as well.

But I digress. Here we go - photos!
He really does like it, despite the face! He's very much a three year old, and loves hamming it up for photos...He wore it to Preschool the day this was taken, and when he strolled in to greet his teachers, he pulled the hem right out in front of himself, announcing, "Look! I've got X for Xander! Mummy knitted it for me!"

Bless his little heart.

And here's Miss Lola-Frog, sporting her very own 'Not So Original Hat', just like Mummy's. Bless her giant head, she grew out of that beret-slash-bakers' hat in about a week (if I'm honest to myself, I do know that it never really did fit her!).

I used the Yarn Harlot's 'Not So Original Hat' pattern, altering the cables very slightly (I think I decreased it by about eight stitches and four rows) to make it small enough to fit her. It's knit in Patons Inca, on two 7mm circular needles - very handy for hats for little ones, as you can try the hat on more effectively as you're knitting it...
Doesn't she just look thrilled with it!?

May Squares

Okay, I've got me some completed, blocked squares for May, all ready for showing off!

This was the first completed for this month, designed with a froggie theme in mind. I'm really quite enjoying the design aspect of the squares I've been making lately. When I couldn't find an image designed that already suited what I needed, I charted my own using colour knitting (with both intarsia and stranded/fair isle techniques) as well as textured stitches, to create the wavey bit in the middle...
This one sort of emerged as I knit it. As I completed the striped section, I decided I needed something else to set it off, and thought about using duplicate stitch to get the pattern happening. The heart was measured and placed using the same heart design used in the first January square...
And the third, which is the first letter of Lola-Frog's name. I'll be knitting the other letters, one at a time, over the next few months. I'm still not entirely convinced that the 'L' stands out enough and is readable enough, but I'm coping with the decision through laziness!
Now, seeing as today's the 28th of May, I'd better get cracking on the June squares!

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!

One's trash, another's stash...

I was most excited to have the opportunity to increase the ol' stash last week, when my mum dropped by with a couple of bulging shopping bags...

Mum volunteers at a local charity op-shop that happens to be situated next door to a yarn shop, and on the day in question (your Honour!), a lady had gone next door with these bags of leftover yarns - although I'm not entirely certain what she thought the yarn shop were going to do with them - and finding them shut, went to the op-shop and left the bags with mum...

And here are the contents!It's not fabulously clean and not much of it is in complete skeins, but a lot of the colours are quite complementary, and because there's a lot of fancy and interestingly textured yarn I'm seeing the potential for a couple of scarves knit with several yarns at the same time... Should be fun experimenting, at least!I'm not even sure what the smeg it is, or even if it IS able to be spun, but I'm sure I'll have fun trying to find out...

And another op-shop find by my talented mum:
I don't know if this Cleckheaton Panama yarn is even made and sold anymore, these look like pretty well-travelled balls... but it is 100% cotton, and I reckon that once unwound and washed, I could dye them some nice kiddie colours and knit up some comfy cotton tops, especially for Little One (who, for those wondering, is showing NO signs of heading south!) later on this year.

I'm getting a lot of fulfillment from knitting children's things right now, there's such a sense of achievement when several projects come off the needles in the space of one month! Although, that being said, I really must pull the drape cardigan out and have a proper crack at it - maybe a new year and a fresh eye on the pattern will help me figure out what I thought is a hideous mathematical error in the increases on the front of this cardie, but as there's no errata listed for this magazine (Simply Knitting?), I have to come to the conclusion that I mustn't be reading this correctly...

I digress. Finished projects?

Here's the finished and blocked Baby Wrap Top, by Erika Knight;... and the next two squares knit for January, ready for the 2009 'Year in a Blanket' KAL. The intarsia on the giraffe isn't completely setting me on fire, but I'm coping (hehe), and the mitred square is a little smaller than I'd intended, but that can be remedied with a crochet border.

Last bit of knitting news (hopefully the last before I have a baby to announce!) is that the Clapotis is underway, and looking loverly so far. With the colour being such gorgeous deep reds, I feel like titling it the 'Raspberry Clapotis'... all ready for hospital knitting!