Leaves and Socks

It’s been a while since I posted last, because I’m slack.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing anything though!   Last week I finally finished my Cedar Leaf Shawlette.  I am SO happy with it.  After blocking it ended up over two metres in length, and I’m sure will be a regular accessory in the cold weather in a couple of months time.  That pattern was extremely easy and very well written, and I already have the yarn to make another for a friend.

My current WIP is another pair of socks.  This pair is in stockingette stitch, no fancy pattern, which is easier to frog when I inevitably make a mistake or three.  It’s been knitting up extremely fast, but it’s not that surprising as I’ve recently made the switch to flick knitting and I’m now FLYING through the rows 🙂

 

The Girl On Fire

I’m on fire!  The beach shawl is finally finished, after a big push over the last couple of days to get it done (so I can move on to a NEW PROJECT! shhh).  I’m really happy with it; I love how the colour has worked out.  I’ll block it over the weekend and hopefully will stretch it to a larger size – at the moment it’s large enough to drape over my shoulders but I’d need a pin to keep it around me.  I’ve now started the Cedar Leaf Shawlette, which looks absolutely gorgeous and seems to be a rather quick knit.  I got a call from my local yarn store yesterday to tell me that my second skein of Lorna’s Laces Shepard Worsted Multi in the Baltic Sea colourway has arrived and is awaiting my purchase, so that is what I’m using for this shawlette.  It’s an amazing forest colour – greens and browns reminiscent of a forest floor.  Perfect for this leafy shawl!  It’s beautiful to knit with too, silky and smooth and it glides across the needles like a dream.

The Beach Shawl

This was supposed to be another Christmas holidays project, but I ended up spending too much time sleeping and fishing and obviously not enough time knitting!  I’m using the Marin Pattern by Ysolda, and knitting it in Magic Light from Ice Yarns with 4.5mm needles.  I originally started this project in lovely Lorna’s Laces Shepard Worsted Multi, but I found the pattern a little confusing to start with and I had to frog a few times.  I then decided that I would learn the pattern using acrylic so I could then make another in the better yarn.  In saying that though, I’m really enjoying knitting in the magic light, and the colours are striping nicely.

If I push hard over the next week I should get this finished – I’m already planning my next project in Madeleine Tosh Merino Light that I may or may not have purchased yesterday….

Christmas Holiday Projects

Let me first get this over and done with – Happy Christmas and New Years and all that jazz!  I’m having a wonderful time at the moment doing whatever I please, since I’m in the middle of my almost three weeks off.  My day usually starts with a lovely sleep in, followed by some computer games and then knitting or crochet (or both) in the afternoon.  The housework is piling up, and my garden has become a jungle.  My gym access card also hasn’t seen much use in the last few weeks, but screw it I’m on holidays!

I reorganised my stash one afternoon last week, and decided that I had way too much crappy acrylic yarn and needed to make a stash buster project.  I chose to make a mandala rug, using 5 strands at once and a 8mm hook, using any yarn I could get my hands on (acrylic, wool and cotton mainly).  The pattern is John Kelly’s Mandala 21, which is easy to find on Ravelry.  The pattern itself was well written and the only painful row was the backpost double crochets and front post triple trebles….yeah you try working those in five strands at once and if your hands don’t feel like overheated iron weights afterwards, you must be superman!

This took me two full days (I watched all six star wars movies plus a season of a tv show all while I was working on this) but it WAS worth it.  If I make another of these, it won’t be for a while in order to let my poor hands recover.

The Finished Fallout Wrap

I don’t have time for much of a post today, but thought I would share some images of my finished project – the Fallout Wrap!  I finished it on Saturday, and I’m in love with it.  It didn’t need blocking so after binding off and weaving the last few ends in, it was ready to wear!  I’m now happily knitting away on a new shawl pattern which I will show you in the next couple of days, using a lovely colourway in Crazy Zauberball 100 yarn.

Summer Holidays Are Coming

Christmas is getting so close now I can almost taste it in the air!  To be honest, I’m not particularly excited about the actual day (I’m not religious so the day doesn’t mean much to me) but I AM excited about the three full weeks of holidays I will have over the Christmas/New Year break when our office closes.  I haven’t had holidays since Christmas last year, so I’m really hanging out for some down time.  Since we don’t have my partner’s daughter here until January, I decided that I wasn’t going to go to all the effort of putting our large Christmas tree up.  So last night, I gathered some enthusiasm and decorated my ’emo’ tree, which of course is black with silver decorations.  It’s only a two foot tree, so it’s sitting on my dining table.  Very simple, but very us this year.

My fallout wrap is coming along very nicely!  I’m so pleased with it, and it is still a joy to work on.  I’ve discovered that while I have trouble crocheting on the bus, I can in fact knit to my heart’s content and not feel the urge to vomit into the hair of the poor person sitting in front of me.  Now that the rows are getting quite long I can only manage two rows on the way into work (express bus) and three on the way home.  I’ve got some lovely yarn on its way to me from the states, so I’m trying to get this wrap finished as soon as possible so I can start something new and exciting.  I also can’t wait to wear it as it’s so soft and light.