Oh, It's a Beautiful Day!

Hurrah for school! Princess is back at kindergarten today, I have the house to myself this morning and all is right with the world.

It is a beautiful day, so what am I doing? Well may you ask. I am uploading photos to my Flickr account, blogging and playing with Ravelry!!! Yay – I’m also intermittently looking out the window and deciding that I’ll take Destructoboy out to play when I bring him home.

So while my photos upload, I thought I’d update you all.

The Happy Clappy has been making progress – to the detriment of Juno – I’ve had a couple of evenings when I haven’t been able to concentrate much on the pattern for cables, so I’ve been working on the Clappy instead. I’m enjoying knitting it, although last night I frogged a row four (get that – four) times because I’d been so tired the night before I’d left cryptic instructions as to where I was up to when I finished for the evening. The instructions were SO cryptic I tried four times to get the counts right until I finally realised that my note meant I had FINISHED row 6 – and NOT THAT I WAS ABOUT TO START IT!!!!



Once this minor problem was sorted (and an hour of knitting time wasted) we were all fine. Now, I should have picked this up before – and, indeed, most people with half a brain WOULD have done so. The problem was compounded by my suddenly getting distracted (Look – something shiny!!! What was that again?) and attempting to knit row 6 of the next section. When I finally realised I needed to knit row 8, it was all plain sailing! (Some days I am soooo dumb!)

In the middle of all this, I realised that I would need some simple knitting – OOOOOOHHHH way back on Friday night – so I head-started myself on Summer of socks and cast on a Feather and Fan sock in The Knitting Ninja’s Tulip colourway. This is sooo pretty – dusty rose, spring green, pastel blue and wine. I have been knitting a plain sock in Patonyle blue faux fairisle, but I’m very bored with it.

Casting on a new travelling sock is breaking a number of self imposed rules. This brings my WIPs to 4, makes me put the Patonyle’s into hibernation, slips Juno down my list – and enrages the Accountant – mainly because I took Tulip to a party on Friday night, evangelised about knitting and chatted to a lovely Grandmother about the best heels!

I decided on another Feather and Fan for a travelling sock, because I have knitted so much of this pattern that I find it easy to knit in cars (or at parties), and I wore my other F&F socks in my Mary Jane’s the other day and was entranced by how pretty the pattern looked!

So, Southern Summer of Socks Challenges:

These are self imposed and I’m quite looking forward to all of them:
1. Knit at least 5 pairs of socks (in addition to normal knitting)
2. Knit at least 2 pairs of Red Bird Knit Sock club socks (yes, the September parcel has been posted and I have knitted no kits)
3. Knit at least one pair of Toe-up socks
4. Knit one pair of real Fairisle socks
5. Knit at least one pair of cotton socks
6. Knit socks only from stash (or socks kits) with one exception – I am allowed one ‘Get out of jail free’ card providing it is to meet one or more of the requirements above (eg. a purchase which assists me in knitting a fairisle, toe-up sock in cotton – well , maybe not, but you get the picture!)

If I meet all these challenges, I will do something nice for myself, like buy some more Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn or something – the reward needs to be thought on a little.

I’d also like to ensure everyone notices that (apart from the socks) all knitting is being carried out by Knitpicks Options needles – quick plug – don’t forget Donyale’s competition and the fact that you can get Knitpicks from her – including the new options later in the year in the lovely wood – but get behind me because I said I wanted some first!!!

Speaking of Donyale, I was a total Yarn Pig yesterday, and bought two of her lovely Yarn Cakes – remind me to stick them in my ‘In’ list at the weekend. I also threw myself off the wagon in order to purchase a Turkish Spindle from Yarn Magazine – who have their Spindle Special on again.

That’s more than enough for today – most of you are probably so bored you’ve already left.

I will have pertinent, witty and amusing stuff for you tomorrow – or the next day – bah!! Who am I kidding? It’ll be the same stuff – you know – wool, yarn, knitting, that stuff – see you then!

I'm not the Wizard of Oz, but....

I’ve just been sewing a heart back on a red devil. This sounds much more exciting than it is. Princess was given a rather unattractive red devil yesterday – which she adores and I am in awe of its general ugliness and tackiness. It showed how tacky it was by the heart it was holding coming adrift today while we were out and about. So I’ve just sewn it back on. Daughter thinks I’m great, son wants the BIG scissors and other pointy injurious equipment from my sewing box, and everybody is happy.

Well, except for the fact that I need to admit to a few more items in: hair bobbles for daughter, in the vain hope that this will stop her screaming when I tie back her hair for school. There are three very cute sets of bobbles and 2 sets of clips. I also acquired 1 new bra on sale, and daughters summer sandals – also on sale, and somehow a ball of clearance Jo Sharp wool slipped in there too. I’ve also bought some wool on ebay, but I won’t admit to that until it actually arrives – there has been some Jo Sharp kid mohair I’ve had my eye on, and I fell off the wagon. (I’ve barely got ON the wagon, at least as far as buying wool goes, so we shall pass a veil over that).

Juno has both fronts finished and a sleeve started (just) and I didn’t mention that I’ve been using my KnitPicks on her – these are so nice to use – I’ve also succumbed to the lure of some KnitPicks DPNs for socks and in a shameless plug, I’d like to point out that the wonderful Donyale has Knitpicks in her online shop and is running a competition with giveaways – so run on over and check it out!

The Accountant has been ribbing me about knitblogging (hah hah very punny – noticed afterwards!). He thinks it a sign that I am a sad individual – I point out that most knitbloggers have very full lives, that I am not a good example (not having anything resembling a life) and that I have made some lovely friends. Also, that this way I can talk about knitting to my heart’s content – and the people who visit me actually know what I am talking about.

I am extremely envious of Madmad’s tech savvy with her photos – very ghoulish and lots of fun – I just want Blogspot to upload my photos faster (it seems to take ages and those of you who have lots of photos have either found a much faster way than me or have things you can wander off and do between uploads). I hereby welcome any and all tips on getting photos to upload faster, because I am slow, slow, slow.

In other news, we are sending George Dubya Bush back where he came from tomorrow – we don’t want him any more – we have our own pale imitation (and I don’t like him much either). I feel so sorry for any of you trapped in Sydney, Dear Readers, it must be a complete pain in the wazoo (notice how I miss out on Rachel’s ‘R’ rating!)

Off to make stuffed potatoes for dinner – with cauliflower cheese and big meaty mushrooms – because I like all that and I don’t care if no-one else does! Enjoy your weekends!

FOs and WIPs (and how you keep track!)

You asked and here it is – The Swing Jumper photo (I’m not including the link because I’ve done it so many times before). This is a crappy photo of a really lovely jumper. I’m wearing it today for the first time and I just love it – I’m already planning on making it again (and again – who wouldn’t love a jumper that takes about 16-18 hours to knit and looks just gorgeous and is really flattering?)

As I said, I used my standard no-brain tactic of increasing the needle size (to 7mm) and making it in the largest size, and in future sweaters I may do 1 more decrease at the neck edge (messing with perfection, I know).

I started the squatty sidekick last night, and as I had Lamb’s Pride Bulky, rather than worsted. I used 8mm rather than 6.5mm needles and used 10 sts across the bottom, rather than 5 as I like a bigger bag. (Yes, yes - I just can't help myself - I've always got to play with other people's instructions - it's a character flaw - what can I say? You should see what I regularly do to recipes!)

It’s looking pretty good so far (even if I do say so myself), and I like a big bag because of all the stuff you tend to carry around in it when you have kids (books and amusements, wipes, tissues, snacks etc), so I’ve had to account for those extra stitches in the shaping. Oh and my copy of the pattern has an error in the stitch count, which I will let Knitting Daily know about (that is, if you have 5 sts on the needle and you pick up 30, then 5, then another 30 you tend to get 70sts and NOT the 90 my copy of the pattern says).

This is also the first thing I have used to Knitpicks options on – although I have possessed them since March (Omigod! I can’t believe I’ve had them that long!) . This has been a combination of habitually reaching for my usual needles (and then not changing over part way through an object) and partly wanting to start something worthy of their wonderfulness!

Well, they are wonderful – I had a moment of worry when one end of the cord started to loosen, but I hadn’t tightened it with the key, and once I did that we’re fine again!

I was reading Bells post about her plethora of WIPs. I find it hard to do that – mainly because my knitting time is so limited. I generally have something easy on the needles for travelling or meetings, and another thing – which may be larger (so not so portable) or more complex (so requires concentration). My travelling knitting is generally socks (plain or with an easy repeat like the feather and fan socks) and my other knitting is garments of some kind. The Monkey socks reversed this, because they required me to concentrate and to keep track of which row in an 11 row repeat.

So now, we’re almost back to normality. I will cast on a new pair of travelling socks as soon as I finish the scarf (not long now) and after I’ve run off a few Squatty sidekicks (as per the pattern with corrections) I’ll cast on a garment. Easy!

I admire and envy those who can keep track of more than 3 WIPs (3 is definitely my upper limit), but secretly suspect they have more knitting opportunities than I. They may travel on public transport (of which there is none locally), have lunch hours, attend more meetings, or not have children threatening to destroy their knitting to get at the coveted pointy sticks!
In other words – they have lives!