Hide that hook!

Someone take my crochet hooks and hide them please. I've been obsessed with crochet for the last couple of days. I've been crocheting motifs. Designing new ones and sketching for new crochet designs. I've got 3 designs almost ready to submit to magazines now. It's taken a lot of experimenting and ripping out. But that's what I love about motifs, they're small and don't take long so if you have to unravel because it doens't work, that's okay.

Only problem is I have a looming deadline for a knitdesign. And I'm not very keen on e-mailing the editor and telling her I won't get it done on time as I've become obsessed with crocheting. So this weekend I will try to resist the hook and get knitting. I took my knitting to knitting group yesterday and actually managed to get some knitting done. You may think a knitting group sounds like the kind of place you do knitting but our group is called 'Knit & Knatter' and I do more nattering than knitting most weeks. But yesterday I managed to get the edging on my current secret project finished and in the evenign I took my knitting to Em's swimming lesson and knitted for 1hr 30mins and a bit more when I got home before I had an early night. I managed to get several inches done and had hoped I'd get to the armholes tonight but I've been crocheting instead. so my aim for this weekend is to get the back finished (hopefully tomorrow) and get the front started and at least the edging (which is 4 inches) done. I'm teaching a workshop next week and attending another one so that'll mean less knitting.

There won't be shop update for about a week probably as I'm all out of stock right now, apart from a small amount of Super Merino and Merino Plus, and I'll be using some of that for Simon's machine knit sweater. I'm waiting for another batch of stock to arrive and hopefully it'll be here sometime next week. I may get some dyeing done on Wednesday or Thursday which means there may be an update next weekend sometime.

I've also been doing some machine knitting today. I forgot to take a photo before it got dark though. I've knitted the back of a sweater for myself. I'm using Araucania Ruca hwich is 100% sugarcane and gorgeous. It's dk weight and a little on the thick side for my machine so the fabric is a little bit denser than I'd like but I think it'll still have enough drape. I had planned to do a 10 cm border in tuckstitch using card 1. I swatched and although tuck stitch with such a thick yarn was a bit tricky it worked okay. But when I tried it last night it went wrong 3 times so I almost gave up. This morning I decided to try again and decided to still use tuck stitch but took out some needles. So I did 2 needles in work, 2 needles out and it created a very interesting fabric. Knitting with a yarn that's really a little too thick makes the knitting harder, pushing hte carriage across is harder work than with a thinner yarn. I made a slight mistake on the shoulder shaping but I'm hoping it won't show. I did proper back neck shaping and shortrow shoulder shaping which is something I didn't do on my first machine knit garment so I'm pleased I managed to tackle it successfully on teh first side today and a slight mistake on the second side.
I may try to knit the front tomorrow. Imagine a whole front or back knitted in one day (or actuall less than 2 hours, but because of my back/neck I've got to take breaks as 2 hours of non-stop machine knitting hurts too much. But the speed is amazing and that's why I love machine knitting. There is no way I've got time to knit myself any garment by hand right now so this is the only way I'm going ot be able to knit for myself. And learning a new skill is such good fun.

I've measured VAnessa and worked out the numbers for a sweater for her which I'll be starting next week. I've promised both Simon and Vanessa a sweater each before we go away on Easter Saturday so I've got to do Vanessa's next week and Simon's the week after. Vanessa is having a sweater similar to 'Mel' which was the alpaca sweater with the big cowl collar I did for Let's Knit back in teh autumn. Emily has the original and loves it. I'm doing Vanessa's in a 4ply merino wool as she wanted a lighter version.

Thank you to everyone who's complemented me on the new look. It's not quite finished yet. I need to sort out side bars etc and that will take some time and I don't have time to do it right now.

I've had a massage today and for some reason that makes me feel really tired a few hours afterwards and I've been struggling to stay awake this evening. So now it's nearly 9pm, I'm getting the girls to bed then I'm off to bed myself.

Have a nice weekend. HOpefully I'll have a picture of my machine knitting by Monday.