Another front cover

After my last post I counted and according to my Ravelry profile page I had 30 magazine designs (I'm counting those whose magazines were on the news stands in 2010) plus 9 designs for Artesano and 2 for The Little Knitting Company published last year. And I managed to squeeeze in a few self-published patterns too. And i couldn't have done any of this without Pixie. She knitted all 6 of the Silk Blend garments and one of the Manos Lace garments and the scarf for Artesano. She knitted lots and lots of the magazine designs too. And a big thank you to Debbie who knitted the fair isle sweater 'Anne' for Simply Knitting last summer.

Yesterday which was a very, very bad day painwise, ended on a good note when the postman arrived just after 5pm with 3 parcels for me. One was some gorgeous yarn from Great Northern Yarns, it's too dark to take photos yet so I will share those in another post. The second parcels was a sweater Pixie knitted, and wow, she was quick. And the last one was Let's Knit issue 39 with my design on the front cover. My second front cover this month. Yeah.

This is a cowl and handwarmer, 'Robyn & Lily' set featuring a pretty lace pattern and a knitted on edging using Bambino Sock. I know I took some pics of this before I sent it off but I can't find them. They may still be on Simon and Vanessa's camera so will dig that out later and see if I can find the pics.

 I kind of messed up a bit and forgot to order Bambino Sock but Bamboozle sock is the same yarn but with BFL instead of merino but it's just as gorgeous. And there will be lots of Bamboozle in the shop on Monday. Tomorrow there will be some Merino Tweed and some Supreme Sock (a new base yarn which is 50/50 merino/silk)  and some Fantasy Sock (there will also be some Royal Lace which is my new Royal Baby Alpaca/silk blend).

Marit asked what the English method of knitting is. In Norway I've never seen anyone knit the English way. Everyone knits the Continental way with Norwegian purl. I'm sure having said that, that someone will come along and tell me differently. But I've never seen anyone in Norway knit differently from the way I knit. So for those who thought there was only one way to knit (whether you thought that one way was English or Continental) in the Western World there are two main styles of knitting. In the English method of knitting the yarn is held in the right hand and 'thrown' around the right needle to make the stitches. In Continental knitting the yarn is held in the left hand. With both the standard continental way and the English way of knitting, the yarn is held in front of the needles for the purl stitch but in Norwegian purl the yarn is held at the back for both knit and purl stitch. In my continental knitting workshops I teach continental knitting with Norwegian purl.

A few goodies arrived this week. A selection of Artesano Superwash Merino for swatching:

and the January shipment of the Thylacine club, not too sure about the colour way but it's a gorgeous blend: alpaca/merino/nylon. Perhaps I'll spin a yarn to have another go at knitting Simon a hat that fits. I've tried twice before and not gotten it right. He's got a big head and knows what he wants. And i'm not good at hats.

Most of my knitting for the last few days has been the collar on this machine knit sweater knitted on the machine in Fantasy Sock. I've had the first sleeve on the machine since last week, only the cap shaping left to do. I must try and finish it today. I want a big roll over collar so it will take me a while:

I also started this scarf in Fyberspates Scrumptious dk. It's not been in my stash for more than a few months and i've been keen to try it and i was looking for something to knit for a friend's birthday this month and she likes purple and cables so I thought a reversible cable scarf in this yarn would be perfect. I've done a few more rows now but I need to get a move on if I'm going to finish it on time. I've known how to knit without a cable needle for a while but I've never liked the technique as I don't really mind using a cable needle but I decided to give it another go and I'm knitting this one without a cable needle and so far I'm happy with it.

Yesterday was a bad day. I woke up extremely tired, although I'd slept really, really well, and my back was extremely sore and stiff. At 11am I went back to bed and slept for two hours. I felt a little bit better so dyed some yarn in the afternoon. I'd put it in to soak first thing in the morning and as I'd run out of citric acid I had to use vinegar and the smell was driving me mad. I hate that smell. So I had to dye the yarn. Afterwards I felt quite ill. Back was still bad, I felt dizzy every time I moved and I was still very, very tired. I went to bed at normal time last night and read until I started going to sleep. I slept for less than two hours and have been awake since midnight. I got up for an hour, then took some more pain killers and went back to bed for two hours. No sleep so got back up and snoozed a little bit for an hour before Simon got up. Think I may be going back to bed this morning. My back is better than it was last night but it's not good. And being tired makes the pain worse.