Waterlily

I always find it very nerve-wracking to sit down in front of an blank post – particularly since it has been a while since my last post. Nevertheless we must go on. I finally finished my Waterlily top.

I used Schoppel-Wolle Admiral 4 fach – which is a great yarn, I had used their more adventurous colourway for a pair of socks so I was looking forward to trying out this yarn again in a garment.

It really blossoms after washing and becomes so soft and dreamy. Honestly, it’s the softest piece of clothing I own.

Overall it was a very straightforward knit, really easy miles and miles of stockinette. However, I did find that the front part of the pattern was not quite as “idiot proof” as I would have liked. It involves one stitch with the left hand side of the pattern, for those of you who have already knit it, you may know what I’m referring to.

Aside from that it was pretty simple, no major issues.

Here it is in all its glory

One modification I made was with the length of the top – I made it a few inches longer than the pattern had called for, and I’m so glad I did. I believe the pattern was knit to about 12 inches, I went as far as I possibly could with the amount of yarn I had, I knit about 14-15 inches, and even at that length it’s still a bit shorter than ideal. I also had a huge issue where I changed the cast on edge to ribbing instead of garter stitch and, well, it all flipped up on me, so I had to rip that back and re-knit the bottom after it was finished. Which was not something I particularly enjoyed.

Overall it’s my new favourite knitted piece – I’ve worn it so many times already. I need to plan another one, maybe in a nice grey?

Rose City

Hello, it has been another long stretch since my last post. But guess what, I’ve hardly finished a thing! Over the next week or two I hope to update my projects on this blog, but be patient. I’ve started a (great) new job but it has been very tiring for me and I don’t have a whole lot of free time. I’ve finished one pair of socks since I started this job (in April!).

Of course that doesn’t stop me casting on another project, the wonderful Rose City Rollers. After seeing about 100 of these projects on Instagram I just had to see what the fuss was about and cast on  a pair.

I’m using The Little Prince Opal Sock yarn which I bought in Amsterdam in January. I love to use yarn I’ve bought on holiday, it’s just my favourite. Plus I think this colourway is pretty rose-coloured too.

These socks are flying along, I only cast them on Sunday night and couldn’t stop knitting. I might just end up with one hundred pairs of Rose City Rollers one of these days.

Can we say terrified? Show notes – Episode 2.

Okay so I might as well just come out with it. I’ve started a podcast. There. I said it.
I watch a lot of podcasts, and I really enjoy them so I thought I might like to add one myself. So here goes nothing.
Two episodes have been uploaded. Here are the show notes from episode 2.

Works in Progress.

Molly Hat –  in Katia Basic Merino

Vanilla Socks in Drops Fable using Los Monos Locos construction.

Finished Objects.

Blue bird of Happiness – in Pink Zauberball.

Stash Enhancement

Spindle – Learn to Spin Kit from HillTop Cloud.

Seed beads for my shawl I have planned

Cheap cotton fabric I purchased.

I think that’s everything I mentioned in Episode 2. As you can tell, the episode is a bit out of date (three weeks!) but I have Episode 3 recorded and ready to go soon.

It has been a long, long time.

In the past few months I’ve pretty much vanished into the woodwork.

I’ve no real explanation other than work and life getting in the way. I’m still knitting, and I’m still crocheting. Will I do a little project recap of the past few months? Okay.

 I finished my Owlies socks. I had started these in March 2014 and finished them in January 2015. These were the most annoying project I’ve ever made. I mean, they look great but I didn’t enjoy knitting them at all, I really hate cables.

These are King Cole Zig Zag socks. I call these my Sunset socks. Nothing to write home about, they’re just plain vanilla socks.

This is a crochet blanket that I’m working on at the moment. I shamelessly stole the colour combinations from a post I saw in a crochet group and haven’t looked back since. It’s about three eights of the way finished.

This is a blanket I’m making for my dog Sam to sit on when he’s on the couch. Again, nothing too exciting it’s just a scrap blanket. It will be finished when I run out of yarn.

These are Crazy Zauberball socks I’ve knit. I love them, they’re very, very squishy. I can’t wait to cast on more in this yarn. I have two other colourways.

This is a cardigan I knit for a woman in work who is expecting a baby soon. I love the buttons one of the women in my knitting group gave me.

Cast on these Christmas socks five days before Christmas and finished them the first week in March. Oh well, there’s always next year.

So this is a summary of most of the things I’ve been up to the past few months. There are some other projects I’ve left out but here’s just a quick recap and update. Hope you’re well.

A Hat for All Seasons

A few months ago, my boyfriend’s mam asked me to make her a hat, which I was happy to do.

It took her a while to figure out what style hat she wanted but this week I finally started working on it.
The hardest part of starting a project for me is often picking out the yarn, especially if I’ve got a lot of choice.

She had asked for a ‘raspberry red’ colour so I narrowed it down to the four above. After spending far too long deliberating, I ended up just emailing her the picture. She picked the middle of the three shades.

The pattern I picked out is called A Hat for All Seasons on ravelry – it’s very straightforward. I’m planning on making it slightly shorter in height and leaving off the bobble because I don’t want it too baggy.

It’s a nice change for me to make a hat and I’m happy with how it’s working up so far!
Happy knitting!

Left test

This post is a test post to see how good the WordPress app is. I used one before but found it didn’t upload photos properly. This is my leftie shawl. I’ve been working on it on and off since mid September. I’ve only five leaves left to do.

Snow is falling

Well, not exactly. It’s a little too early for that (hopefully). But it certainly has been snowing some crocheted snowflakes at my house. I’ve wanted to try this pattern for a long long time, right when I started knitting (ok a year ago) but never had the courage/thought I didn’t know how to crochet. I guess that’s still true, I don’t know how to crochet. But with the help of YouTube (looking up each single instruction) and the encouragement of the other women (is it ok for me to refer to myself as a woman, I’m 21 now?) at my knitting and crocheting group, I decided to give it a shot.

I’m so glad I did. I’m making a “practise” baby blanket for one of my mam’s pregnant colleguges. I began by working on all the white snowflakes at once, later going back and adding the blue. Unlike the pattern, I’m doing strips of 5 and 4 snowflakes to make a baby-ish sized blanket. The pattern calls for strips of 7 and 6, though I possibly think this may be too small for an adult blanket.

 

I think it’s just magical how the border really sets the snowflake, I can’t wait to finish this because it’s going to look so beautiful. I’m aiming for one snowflake a day to finish, think I’ve only 12 left to finish the whole blanket, exciting! 

It’s been quiet

It’s been nearly a month since my last post, and in that time I can’t say I’ve achieved much in terms of progress on my already overflowing WIP sock drawer. Some projects are much closer to completion, whereas others are nearly untouched.
While I’ve been taking a sort-of break from sock knitting, I have made a small scarf/wrap. The pattern is Terribly Simple  by Caitlin French, found on Ravelry. The pattern is so, so easy and done in simple stocking stitch.

My favourite part of the pattern, are the little curls that magically appear on both ends after casting off. The knitting process took me a few weeks on and off, but probably could have been finished a lot sooner if I had had the time to sit down with it. At one point, near the end, I dropped three or four stitches, and struggled to get a few of them back up, which made me debate frogging back four rows of 260+ stitches. I was going to take a picture for this post of the mistake, which was noticeable at the time, but now it has vanished into the scarf. I’m so glad I didn’t waste my time fixing it.

The yarn I used was KPPPM, though I don’t know the name of the colourway. I like the yarn a lot I guess, the colours are beautiful, I just found with my two skeins the colours were way off so I had to knit alternating balls, which was kind of annoying at times.
However, I am delighted with the finished product and I’ve been wearing it non-stop since I cast off.
As far as I can tell, posting will resume at fairly regular intervals. I’ve photographed most of my WIPs so I have material to write about, so hopefully I’ll be able to continue blogging a little more regularly.

Finished Object Wednesday : Week 2 – Very Late post

So, into the second week of my goal to cast off a pair a week and I’ve hit a disaster. 41 hour working week, plus night shifts make it impossible to have any kind of life, let alone knit. Despite this, I’m still making some progress on my projects during my spare time – when I’m not sleeping that is. I expect the posts to be pretty scattered over the next few weeks until things settle down again at work. I sometimes have to remind myself I’m lucky to have a job at all. 

Anyway, during the summer on my long journey back from West Cork I visited a shop in the city centre called Vibes and Scribes. I wish I had had longer to be there, because it was a lovely shop stuffed to the brim with material, yarn and god knows what else. I picked up a few random balls of yarn, and one of them was Admiral R Druck, made by Schoppel-Wolle

  

 

The yarn knit up pretty tightly, at least compared to what I’m used to, but I actually prefer the gauge. It was also my first time using this kind of self-patterning yarn, which I thought was entertaining to watch change as the socks progressed.

Pair two of eight finished.. and it’s off to work again!

Finished Object Friday: 1 – King Cole Zig Zag

So the first pair to be completed during my Cast-Off Mania are my King Cole Zig Zag socks. I used the Vanilla Latte stitch pattern, which I love and will definitely be using again, it gives the socks a lovely rustic and cosy look. One thing I must say is I find it strange that the yarn is named “Zig Zag” when they’re clearly not. I have bought three more skeins of it though because it’s lovely and soft and has great yardage. 

A close up of the stitch pattern

 

As these were knitted toe-up I centred the stitches to suit the toe, so that two sets of three knit stitches ran down either side. This idea was suggested by someone on the Ravelry projects page, but for the life of me I can’t find it now.

As you can see I made these socks to match, although in the second sock I did experience a weird break that messed up the yarn colour for a few repeats. Once I removed this section however everything went back to normal, although it meant leaving in the white lines. I don’t mind these little imperfections though.

 Lovely cosy Autumn socks!

 

One pair down, seven to go! Happy Friday!