Shrug it off

I've been doing a lot of machine knitting this month. I go to a monthly machine knitting group and we agree on a challenge each month. Something we can all knit. Last month it was to knit a summery garment. I knitted the Araucania Ruca Cardi but only got the body done in time for the May group:

Last weekend I finally got around to knit the sleeves. I set one in and sewed up the side and underarm seams on one side. Tried it on and the sleeve is far too tight. Now I did have problems when I was setting in the sleeve cap. The sleeve cap was smaller than the armhole but I thought it would be okay but it wasn't. So I need to rip out the sleeves, re-calculate and re-knit sleeves, which ofcourse I haven't done yet but i will do it this weekend as I really want to finish this cardi. I've also got to decide what to do about front button bands. I did originally think about doing an i-cord edging but I'm not sure.

Our group challenge for June is to knit a very simple shrug. We're doing the rectangular kind. Knit a rectangle and sew up the sleeve seams. I'm not all that keen on this shape of shrugs as I'm not sure it's all that flattering on me. But I did knit two last weekend. I decided to use it as an opportunity to experiment with stitch patterns. the machine has a pattern type called tuck stitch which I love and if you take a few needles out of use you get tuck lace.

Last year I did a very simple waist coat using a tuck punch card with some needles out of use. I'd written down 2 needles in use and 2 needles out of use in my note book which means every 2 needles on the machine I take 2 needles out of use. That didn't work, so I looked at the waist coat and it looked like 3 needles in use and 2 out. I was wrong again but I ended up with a really nice stitch pattern.

I decided to use this for my shrugs. I did the first one in Supreme Sock in a colourway I dyed last week and fell in love with. It took 200gr.

I had 2 skeins of either Ocean Silk or Silken Sock which I dyed last year and had kept for myself.

Although it's the same stitch pattern knitted at the same tension it does look a bit different.

I did take some pics on my dress form but taking pics of this type of shrugs on a arm-less dress form is not easy, so I'll have to try and get someone to take photos of me modelling it this weekend.

I'm currently knitting a cardi for me using another tuck stitch pattern and Manos del Uruguay Serena. I fell in love with Serena when I designed with it earlier in the year. I thought it would be too thick for my machine but tried it and it's okay. I've finished the back of the cardi today and will be starting one front tonight. i'm hoping to finish it this weekend. I need some lightweight summer cardigans, although at the moment i'd rather wear my cashmere cardis.

I've put up a preview of my new Daisy Shawlette on Ravelry today. I managed to get one of the coveted Ravelry pattern ads for June and I decided I wanted to use it to advertise my Daisy Shawlette.  I'm wondering if I made the right decision as the pattern is not ready yet but I need to get on with it this weekend and get it done. I'm aiming to get it published by the end of next week. Vanessa did some modelling for me today but I wasn't 100% happy with the photos I got so I need to do some more. But here are some from this afternoon:

And here are two that Vanessa probably won't be happy for me to show:

I have been dyeing yarn this week and there will be a shop update. Rain today has delayed drying so the shop update will be on Saturday or Sunday. I will send out a newsletter when it's ready and there will be a special offer in the newsletter. If you've not signed up, the sign up form is in the side bar - don't miss out on great discounts.

First Design in Simply Knitting

The new issue of Simply Knitting came yesterday and features my first design for Simply Knitting. It's a fair isle design, worked in one piece in the round with a circular yoke. Debbie did a fab job in knitting up the sample. They even showed a picture of the wrong side of the fair isle pattern. It looked perfect. Thank you Debbie. Debbie has just started a new company called Redhound which specialises in dog coats and gifts for dogs. Her stuff is fantastic. She had a stall at The Country Living Christmas Fair and won the Editors Choice Award.

There was even a small pic on the cover, down in the left hand bottom corner:

Here are some of the pics I took before I sent it off:

We did have a little bit of a drama with this sweater. Debbie rang me to say she wouldn't have enough of the green yarn to finish the yoke. She sent the garment back to me. I took of the ribs at the bottom of the sleeves and body and unravelled them and re-knit them much shorter. And used that yarn to finish the yoke. Perfect!

I've finished my last deadline before christmas. Now, I'm busy planning my Christmas knitting. I've promised the girls socks and fingerless gloves with mitten tops. Emily has picked out her yarn and I may get started on those tonight. Vanessa's may not get done. She got some new mittens on Sunday so is not desperate for the fingerless gloves. I also wanted to knit something for Simon's parents, his sister and her husband and my parents. I'm doing it on teh knitting machine so it should be quick. I spent some time on the knitting machine this morning and it did not go well. I tried to do a rib, which I can do quite well by now and I just ended up with some needles not knitting properly. I kept trying and it kept messing up. I had lunch and then tried again and it worked. I got to the point where I thought it was something wrong with the machine. I did manage to finish the second front for my navy cashmere cardi eventually:

Just sleeves to do. I'm joining the shoulders tonight and picking up for the front bands which i'm hand-knitting. We're having our housegroup Christmas social here tonight so I need something simple to knit. The front bands are perfect.

I also started a curly scarf crocheted in Art Yarns Beaded Silk. I was planning to take this to Norway but I started on my break this morning and just carried on. I'm slightly worried about running out of yarn as I've only got about 90 m.

I finished my cashmere waist coat on Monday.  I knitted the fronts and back on my knitting machine but handknitted the armbands and the front bands.  I'm very, very happy with this garment. I made no mistakes on the machine at all. My first completely mistake-free machine knitted garment! It looks huge on my dress form but my dress form is a size 8/10 and i'm not!

I love the shaping for the v-neck:

I've got some pattern writing to do and some Christmas knitting to plan.

Jewellery

I went on a fused glass and dichroic jewellery workshop yesterday. It was hard work but great fun. Not at all good for my back and neck though. I don't think I could consider adding this as a hobby although I loved it. And if someone gave me a kiln I'd be tempted to give it a go. we managed to make several pieces of jewellery. I don't think mine were the most successful ones. There were some talented people there.

This is my first piece which I turned into a brooch.
My next two pieces the girls loved so I let them keep them. We turned them into necklaces. I'll have to retrieve them at some point over the weekend to take photos.

I then decided I'd try to make a bracelet. I wasn't very good at cutting the pieces of glass. And trying to cut 6 or 7 pieces of identical size glass was beyond me so I decided to go for different sizes. I did make one more piece but forgot to take it home with me. It was rather difficult when the pieces came out of the kiln as several of us struggled to recognise our own pieces. I did recognise other people's pieces but I couldn't remember some of my own.

Anyway, heres the bracelet:
I'm a little concerned the pieces is a little big but I've got big wrists so it may work okay.

Here's my favorite and most succesful piece. I'll keep this one for myself.
And here are my failures:The were supposed to be for the girls but the blue one failed completely and the pink one I used a silver paper heart on pink stone which I shoudn't have done apparently.

I finally managed to get some pics of my Luscious Lace tuck stitch scarf and Handmaiden Seasilk moebious. The weather was very grey so the lighting was exceptionally bad.

this is the Luscious Lace scarf. I used 2 skeins although I'd used a tiny bit of it before so it wasn't two full skeins. it was extremely quick to knit and I love the resulting fabric. It's light and soft and luxurious. I blocked it like I do with my lace items.

And here is the moebious scarf in Handmaiden Seasilk. I'm not 100% happy with this. Not sure if it's too wide or too short or what but the moebious twist doesn't seem to work very well. It doesn't drape properly. But the yarn was gorgeous and has been in my stash for ages. Not sure why I bought this colour as it's not 'my' colour. The machine loved Seasilk too.

Tonight is Halloween. We're not big halloween fans. Our church is generally very against halloween. I'm not sure that my reasons for not liking halloween is for Christian reasons. I think most kids do trick or treating as a bit of an excuse to dress up and beg for sweets. Which is whyI hate it. Where we live we get a huge number of 'trick or treaters' and I don't mind the little kids who look cute and turn up with thier parensts. What I don't like are the older kids and teens who go around on their own and are incredibly rude and unpleasant. One year some kids demanded money when we said we'd run out of sweets. They were then rather rude when Simon said no. Basically it's an evening of the dog barking like mad every time someone knocks on the door. Opening the door and handing out sweets to rude kids. We've tried turning the lights off and closing the curtains and sitting here in the dark but they still knock on the door.

So now we normally go out. Our family tradition is to take the girls to the cinema. This year their grandparents wanted to take them to an event which involves a bonfire, a Meatloaf concert (I expect it's not the real 'Meatloaf') and fireworks. So Simon and I have got a night to ourselves. We've decided to go to the cinema but struggled to find a film to watch. Most of them are halloween themed or scary or kids films. None of which I like.

So now to my next decision. I need to take some knitting. My current secret project is not suitable for cinema knitting. I can carry on with my plain sock but I kind of fancy starting a new scarf in Manos Silk Blend. So I'm off upstairs to wind the yarn and do a quick swatch so I can cast on before we go to the cinema. I've got some gorgeous colours of Silk Blend in my stash. Now, which colours shall I choose?

A grey obsession

I think i'm developing an obsession with grey.

Exhibit 1 - the grey merino I'm spinning. I did a little bit more last yet. Had planned to continue spinning while we watched Question Time but my wheel is making a clunking noise so I stopped.

Exhibit 2 - The grey alpaca I bought on Sunday which is gorgeous and will be on the wheel next. Must get a better pic of it. Still not decided whether to try and get another 100gr bag of the grey merino or ply it with some of the grey alpaca. I weighed what I had left last night, thinking if I'd spun less than half I might do the other half on another bobbin but I'd spun over half so I carried on spinning onto the same boobin.

Exhibit 3 - This gorgeous Organic Merino in 3 different colourways. A customer asked for a custom dyed Organic Merino so I did 3 shades. After months of trying to get a good grey I managed to get 3 good ones in one session. I'll be dyeing more greys I think. I'm really keen to knit something in one of these but must finish other stuff first.Exhibit 4 - The silver Snow Queen. This shawl is hanging on my dress form in the lounge and I love it. The colour is perfect. It kind of shimmers and I keep wanting to put it on. So summing up, I think I can safely say I've got a grey obsession. But then who wouldn't being surrounded by these gorgeous greys.

My secret knitting is going well. I'm catching up on one project. Had to unpick a section this morning but all caught up now.

Last night I grabbed an old ball of sock yarn (no idea which brand it is) and decided to play with tuck stitch on my knitting machine. I chose card no 3. I kind of hoped it would be long enough for a scarf but I made it far too wide - about 80 sts - and it's much, much to short for a scarf. It only took 10 mins though, to knit up nearly 100gr of sock yarn. Amazing, isn't it?! I love the fabric. It looks good on both sides.

So I looked through my stash to see if I had two balls of the same colourway and found 3 balls of Noro Silk Garden sock yarn. I did a quick swatch this morning using tuckstitch and the same card. I'm not sure if it looks quite as good in the Noro.

Here's the other side:

I thought instead of knitting a scarf, perhaps I'd do a very basic shrug. But I'm a little undecided. I think this machine might be magic for using up some stash though. I'm hopefully getting a lace carridge for it soon. Would love to be able to do some quick lace scarves on it.

I did play with some other cards and tuck stitch this morning and this one was interesting, although the yarn is so busy you can hardly see it. The other cards I tried didn't quite work. Any machine knitting experts? Any idea which cards work with tuck stitch? My manual should tell me but I can't work it out.

I coudn't resist the temptation to do a little bit of crochet this morning either and made this quick circle. I'm thinking I may be able to get enough circles out of the two balls of Posh sock yarn I've got to make a scarf. not quite sure about how to connect them yet.

Emily wanted me to teach her how to crochet last night so we had a go at a foundation chain and double crochet. She got it I think but I struggled a bit with my patience. Don't think I'm any good at teaching kids. Adults I love teaching but not sure about kids. This weekend she wants me to teach her how to use the knitting machine.