Works In Progress…

I’ve been playing with the stuff I got at the Knitting and Stitching Show, and they are at a point where I can show you pictures.

I’ve been making a vintage lace edging design  Grandmother’s Lace Edging from Knit Wiki (Ravelry Link) with the Habu Cotton.

Its knitting up beautifully, it has such a nice hand to work with and the way the colours are layering gives it even more of a vintage feel. A while back you may remember me mentioning my victorian clothing project. Now, I haven’t mentioned it in a while as I’ve been having sewing machine issues (as in mine is awful and i’m trying to find a decent one. Seriously, it has issues sewing a straight seam and its not me!) but I am planning on using this lace to edge some fine cotton lawn bloomers and chemise for that project. They always take more lace than you think they will, although I will get more that enough from the cotton but I am going to knit till I run out of cotton as i know I will find uses for the lace.

Yesterday, Lesley came over and we had tea, cake, we watched this:

and using the 12mm needles she has lent me, I knit this:

The first half of the body of my first sweater/jumper/pullover! The silk mountain is knitting up beautifully, the colours stripe nicely and theres a strand of blue running through all the other colours which ties the colours together well. Starting a new ball is easy as long as I can find a ball that starts in the same colour(ish) as the last one ended. I’ve already cast on the second body piece (they are both the same so I get to decide which one I want to use.)  and its about a third done. Due to the size of the needles its a lovely loose “sloppy” sweater like the crocheted ones I wore as a teenager but I’ve no idea how on earth I’ll block it!

According to my fella, sitting crosslegged on the floor, knitting with huge needles, I looked like the doll I got the pattern for:

Am rather tempted by her jumper but her stripy socks are brighter than mine though 😉

Am desperate to get started on her but as I don’t have the right fabrics – I have standard cotton but I need windsor ponte for the body and craft velour for the head and hands and  I am hoping to be able to make her very soon…I think she might need wings…I wonder….needlelace perhaps?

I have a book on needlelace my great aunt gave me. She’s an amazing textile artist and probably one of my greatest inspirations. Her name is Hazel Lake and she’s so cool. She’s a published author on local history and one of her books is even listed on amazon : a book on the Arkwrights and thier involvement in her home town of Harlow.

I’ll see if I can get some pictures of her work to show you.

I’m planning to make my silk steel into chokers and bracelets once I can work out the best way of working fastenings and seeing if beads can be added. Part of me wishes I’d got enough to make Sea Tangles.

Ooh do you remember that first pair of socks I made? Well, my fella has requested a pair of socks for xmas and I got him to try those on so I could see where I need to adjust the pattern for his feet they fit perfectly so he is now the proud owner of my first ever pair of socks and he’s still getting a pair for xmas!

He’s out tonight seeing some friends so I am going to be spending the evening in my snazzy flannel pj’s:

(I’m not a person for shaped buttons but these are cute!) on the sofa with the duvet, knitting and drinking hot chocolate while watching firefly.

TTFN!

Changes….

Well, as you can see, theres been a bit of a redesign.

There was a discussion at my knitting group on tuesday about how people found blogs with dark backgrounds and white text hard to read, so I have taken this on board and had a little bit of a redesign, as while my blog was eyecatching it wasn’t particularly easy to read.

Many many thanks to Tinks who kindly did her computer wizardry and made my custom header image otherwise no one would know who I was!

I’ve also finally got round to putting my blogroll in the sidebar…theres some nice stuff there, go look!

Well, lets see, I’ve been busy working for my mum, packing stuff up and sending it out for her jewellery shop on ebay.

I’ve discovered the names of the stands I couldn’t remember at Harrogate.

I got the Noro at Knit’n’Caboodle and I kinda wish I’d got one of their tshirts and hoodies and I’m rather taken with the purple sock needles they do.

And I got the Lang needles at the Art Yarns Ltd stand – can’t find a website for them.

I’ll leave knitting updates for another post, possibly later today but for now, have a good day, and keep warm on this chilly november day!

All Showed Out.

Well, I’ve finally stopped being tired and its Sunday and my feet still hurt from Thursday and I was wearing the most comfortable and supporting shoes I own! The housework is done and I can sit down and actually collect my thoughts about the knitting and stitching show.

I had a wonderful time, saw some amazing exhibits and there were SO many stands that it was a little overwhelming.

Stands I particularly enjoyed were:

Alpaca Select who had lots of gorgeous alpaca yarns and some amazingly soft alpaca teddy bears and llamas. We spent a lot of time discussing the reasons why we needed alpacas of our own.

Biggan Design Merino Yarn who do merino DK in the most amazing bright colours, I got a sample card and can’t stop looking at the colours they are so warm and positive looking.

Black Hills Wools who sell New Zealand wool in its natural colours with some further blends of those colours to produce new shades. It was lovely!

Deco-Blue Designs who sell knits and accessories made from denim and reclaimed notions where I got this amazing vintage craft pattern:

Its for felt flower accessories and has patterns for sweet peas, gardenias, dog roses, and my favourite flower, anemones. Photos of what I make soon!

A stand I think was Judith Mansfield Books where I got some gorgeous little reels of Button Hole Twist on wooden reels for my collection (I collect wooden reels, you see with or without thread on them still). I wish I’d bought more but the budget wouldn’t allow it.

The Spellbound Bead Company had some amazing kits for making beaded necklaces and lots of over things with beads.

Jan Horrox – a British cloth doll maker had a stand and I got one of her doll patterns called Rachel Raggs who is a mixture of knitting and cloth and as soon as I’ve got supplies am going to give it a go:

Web of Wool is one of my favourite on line shops and the stand didn’t disappoint! As usual they had their wonderful range of sock yarns and I was good and resisted as I was saving my pennies for my favourite stand.

My favourite stand of the show was Habu Textiles.  Habu is simply amazing. I could have spent hours there, just looking at all the different yarns, and seeing the different fibres there. I surrendered to the beautiful textiles and got 3 skeins of Sumi Cotton Tegarasuri a-145 10/2 lace weight – colourway wine:

And some Silk Stainless Steel in silver – its a lace weight yarn with a stainless steel core covered in silk:

I’ve started knitting the cotton up into some lace edging and its knitting up beautifully. Photos soon!

From a stand I can’t remember the name of, I bought some Lang 1.5mm DPN’s to work the Habu cotton on.

And from another stand I can’t remember the name of – and its bugging me like anything – I got some Noro Silk Mountain; in fact a small mountain of Silk Mountain! :

I mainly can’t remember because I was having the vapours from actually holding 10 balls of Noro but we’ll gloss over that, shall we?!

Now, I just need some 12.75mm needles to knit it up into a loose knit jumper. Where on earth will I find needles that size?!

The show was rather busy – especially with school groups – but not so packed as to make it impossible to walk, and the breath of the stands and exhibits was very interesting; even if there were a number of inappropriate stalls for beauty products and sweets etc., which didn’t seem to fit in.There was so much to see it was interesting, educational and very tiring.

I can recommend getting a show guide beforehand and marking the places you definetly want to get to (Lesley, you genius!) and taking a shopping list of things you actually need (Great suggestion, Tinks!).

All in all I had a wonderful day and I already planning to go again next year.

Right now, the temperature has dropped here again so I am going to go and make a hot chocolate and get warm again!

Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show

I promise to tell you all about my day out in Harrogate, but am still so tired it will have to wait till tomorrow!

TTFN

Sharing the pretties

Morning.

For the first time in weeks I am up in the morning! I have some hot chocolate – I wanted coffee but no caffiene till my meds are into my system – and am settling down in front of the computer to share some more photos of things I’ve been making 🙂

Yesterday, I went to see L and we planned out little adventure to the Knitting and Stitching Show tomorrow. We went through the guide and marked all the booths/stalls we really want to see,and looked a few of them up online and I am feeling somewhat less terrified about it now. I had been rather thrown on Monday when I realised that the show is this week rather than next week, but after one nearly sleepless night, I had a good talk with a couple of people and am now feeling less nervous about it all.

Instead of knitting frantically all day and night today to finish the clapotis, I’ve decided I’m going to finish a different project to wear and aim to finish my clapotis for xmas.

I’m planning to finish off a simple side project I’ve been working on:

When I was in Cornwall a couple of months ago, my lovely friend Sue gave me a cone of purple yarn.

Its a lovely shade of purple, its slightly darker and richer than it photographed.

I’ve made a snood and 3/4 of a pair of fingerless mitts out of it so far:

I’ll try and get some photos of me wearing them tomorrow – because I will have finished the second glove by the time we get on the train in the morning!

I finished my Socktoberfest project; Autumn Leaves Socks in November I’m afraid, but I finished them!

I used the Picot Eyelet Socks pattern from Black Dog Designs but adapted the heel and shortened the cuff to suit my ankle. I knit the cuff on 3mm needles to allow for my shapely ankles and then shifted down to 2.5mm needles for the heel, foot and toe. I used some gorgeous Trekking XXL yarn and just feel that these socks are just so autumnal, which is probably my favourite season.

I love love love the eyelet and ribbon look. Its so girly! I’m not incredibly girly but I think this is about the level of it I can manage. I threaded some 4mm rust coloured silk ribbon through the eyelets. I am also a fan of picot edging. Its such a lovely look and is so comfortable!

Using some of the remaining Trekking XXL I made this little rosemary sachet using a Jean Greenhowe pattern from Bazaar Knits called Fragrant Finery.

Its designed for DK yarn but I used sock yarn on 2.5mm needles and it came out a really nice size and I’m really happy with it.

Not a huge turnout of work but enough to keep me happy 🙂

I have work to do today which I better get on with. My ebay shop didn’t work out so I’m now working with my mum with her ebay shop and hopefully that will work out well.

I’ll be back at the end of the week with my little report on the Knitting and Stitching Show! So excited!Better write a list of things I want to look out for!

Oh my, where did October go?

Unfortunately I have been sick for a MONTH!

I came down with flu, the proper ‘oh dear god, I think I’m dying’ kind, and then I just started feeling better and came down with a virus that mainly made me even more tired and my sinuses immensely painful so I have been hiding away from the internets, and for the main part didn’t even feel like knitting *shock horror*

I have been virtually living on the sofa with a duvet (I try not to stay in bed unless sleeping as I get easily depressed that way) and watching tv. I have to admit to becoming addicted to one US drama “Gilmore Girls” – in all its dsyfunctional kooky family wonderfulness and watching a lot of west wing, and working through various films, and old tv series when I wasn’t napping or feeling miserable.

Gilmore Girls has now become my afternoon break viewing. I make a cup of tea and a snack and curl up and watch. I don’t even knit – thats for knitting times. This is pure me time.

And some knitting has been happening.

Several weeks ago, when discussing with L that I wanted to go to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Harrogate, but I just wasn’t sure I could deal with crowds of that size, and that I would try to go next year, but she suggested going early in the day and planning it out first with a showguide, and once I agreed she bought the tickets so I couldn’t change my mind! We go in a couple of days time  and as part of my being brave I realised I wanted something knitted to wear to it.

Why being brave? Because I have problems relating to anxiety levels and large places with large crowds tend to affect me badly, its like that feeling you get if you try and go shopping on Christmas Eve, and I get it in all sorts of places. Well, its on the only situation I have problems in but its one of the major ones.

Anyway, as I want something knitted to wear to the K&SS, between L’s influence and Brenda Dayne’s, I started a clapotis using some balls of yarn my mum scored me on ebay.

They were 16ish little 25g balls of completly discontinued Sirdar Country Style Fair Isle Effect yarn.

Now, its two days from the day we are going to the show and its not finished so I shall be knitting like crazy till the late hours of wednesday night!

Its come on a little since I took this picture but you can see how the colours are developing, and I promise to let you know if I manage to finish it in time! Oh my, that weaving ends in is going to take a while.

I have more knitting to show you but I shall have to write about those another time, as I need to go and make a cup of tea and knit like a maniac!