Gratitude

Today I am trying to remind myself that life isn't as bad as I sometimes think. I am having problems with my health, after many months of less pain. The pain levels are nowhere near what they used to be, but because they higher than I have experienced recently, I am feeling pretty sorry for myself. So this blog is a list of all the things that make me smile at the moment.

Spring finally appears to have arrived in Leicester. We have daffodils...



.... tulips.....



... and happy cats in the sunshine.



I saw my lovely family at the weekend. I also gave away my Sweater Cat, but he went to a good home. Three year old Katie loved him and I am sure will get lots of pleasure from his company.

Last week I got a lovely present in the post. I got some stitch markers from Cliodhna on Ravelry.



Clidhna simply posted these stitch markers to me, because I spotted them on Ravelry and said how pretty I thought they were. They are very beautiful and I am tremendously grateful for this gift, as it reminded me that there are some truly generous people in the world who think nothing of passing on a gift to a stranger. If you want to get your own, very pretty, markers, they are sold here.

I am also very grateful my socks are looking quite good.



I am also very happy to be in the receipt of a book on baby booties, lent to me by my friend Angela, from my Borders knitting group. I am going to have such fun knitting things from this book.

So even though my pain is a bit worse than it has been recently, I just have to remember that life isn't all about the pain in my abdomen. Those few square inches of soreness do not have to rule my entire existence. There is a whole world out there, that is filled with things that make me happy. I just have to remind myself of that fact sometimes.

Designing Socks

I have been a busy little bee this week. I have been designing! No matter what my beloved family think about my general brilliance, this is not as easy as they would have me believe. Tinkering with patterns is something I would generally leave to someone with a great deal more experience than me. Making bags up is one thing, messing around with sweaters is another thing entirely. However, I have found a compromise project. The humble sock.

You may have noticed in previous posts that I have been searching for the perfect sock pattern/recipe pretty much since I started knitting. This post is all about my search.

Starting with the toes, I am doing Judy's Magic Cast On for the first time with these socks. I love this technique. It has made the toes of my new socks lovely and smooth, with a very nice shape. I like the toe up sock for several reasons, namely you can try them on as you knit ensuring a perfect fit, and you can knit until you run out of yarn to get the right length.



I think I have found my perfect toe! Part one of the mission completed!

I am also trying to do 2 socks at once on a circular needle.



So far, I am liking this technique a lot. Essentially, this means that I can ensure that the all changes in the sock pattern and shaping are made in exactly the same place. It also means there is less threading through of the cable, which makes the whole process feel much faster. I don't know if it is, but it feels more efficient. It will also mean that I can keep going with my socks until they are the right height and all width adjustments, made as I go, will be identical for both socks.

So Part 2 of my mission is completed, my favourite needle technique discovered.

As you can see from the above photograph, these socks have patterns on them. These patterns were not taken from someone else's pattern. I could not find patterned socks that would fit my gauge/obscenely wide feet. I have had to invent my first cable pattern. This was less scary than I thought it would be. I started off with graph paper, made to scale using a lovely helpful gadget I found here. Once I finished sketching my ideas out, and played around with the stitches, I wanted to write it up more clearly. After a quick Google search I found this clever software, on Jacquie's blog, which hasn't been updated since November 2008. I'm not sure if KnitChart is being looked after actively, but in the short term it did the job admirably of charting my cable pattern.

I am really happy with these socks so far. I am going to attempt to do a Toe-Up Gusseted Heel from a tutorial on MaiaSpins' blog. The tutorial looks really complete and I hope that this will be Part 3 of my sock mission completed when the heel is turned. I will keep you posted.

In the meantime I am going to plough through all my magazines to see if I can find a sweater pattern that my brother might possibly like. My SIL wants me to knit him something and I have yet to find the perfect pattern. After the pattern work on my socks you would think I would be confident about tinkering with other people's patterns, but in fact, it has turned me right against the idea. See Emma, I am brilliant only on a small sock sized scale, help me find a pattern that doesn't need messing with.... please!

March Square

I have been very lax this month regarding my KAL Blanket. I have finally completed one of my March squares. It is taken from Debbie Abrahams, Flower Power pattern and I have used different colours. I have also used different yarn, but I'm sure I mentioned that before.



The square is larger than anticipated but as I really like the patterns I'm just going to have to jog the blanket to fit together, even if that means crocheting round the smaller squares to make them fit.

I apologies for the quality of the photo but I decided not to block the flower squares until I had more than one to show for my efforts. I have cast on my next one, and then I will try and dash off a couple of plain stocking stitch squares to up my March quota. I have done some more on my big centre panel, but I feel that doesn't count because it doesn't really look much bigger.

Ah well, I'm sure I will get there in the end.

Quick & Cute

In line with my recent determination to post more frequently than once a week, I am going to share a quick and cute project I finished last night.

My friend has recently had a baby girl. I made her a crochet blanket when we didn't know what gender the baby was going to be. Of course once the baby was born and I knew I had an excuse to knit in pink, I had to knit a baby hat. I couldn't find what I wanted for free, so I raided the patterns at Mary Clare. I found a leaflet with 4 baby/child hats by Sirdar. As a lot of my friends are having babies at the moment I felt I could justify splashing out on a leaflet.



The pattern has flowers embroidered but I think the lace is enough decoration. Here is another shot with Panda modelling the hat at a rakish angle.



I may also use up what is left of the pink yarn by making some pink booties, do you think I'm going overboard??

Another Week Passes

This whole weekly blogging thing is beginning to annoy me, I must update more often, so that I have less to say in each post. I'm sure that you would rather read nice bite sized blogs as much as I would prefer to write them that size. So here we go, another mammoth updating session.

I have more bag news for you. I am really enjoying experimenting with different bags and have even got my sewing machine to work. I don't really know what I am doing with a sewing machine and last time I used it, it ground to a nasty halt, which put me off using it for quite a while. My lovely LYSO informed me that I probably just had the tension turned up too high, and you know what, she was right. I managed to sew the lining for my friend's birthday bag using the machine, with NO PROBLEMS!!! Woohooo! This is going to vastly improve the look of my bags. I am also going to be tempted to have another go at sewing things and have already succumbed to buying some more pretty fat quarters to play with when I have some spare time.

Back to my bags......



This was an experimental bag. It is small pouch style bag made using Artesano Inca Cloud alpaca wool. I have never felted alpaca and I am quite pleased with the way it worked. It is not a smooth felt, but I quite like the texture and have decided that the colour and texture requires no futher decoration.



This is my friend, Rachael's birthday bag. It is beautifully soft and silky and as such doesn't make for a great felted item. The colours are beautiful and the bag does demand stroking, but it will probably need quite a lot of TLC to ensure it retains its beauty.

I have used plastic reinforcement to give the bag structure, which shows off the colours to their best.



I have also lined the bag with a vibrant coloured poly-cotton.



You can't see very clearly from this photo but the fabric is mottled and adds real depth of contrast with the colours of the felted fabric. I sewed the lining using my sewing machine, a bit of a first for me and then hand sewed the completed lining into the bag. I have actually managed to hide the stitches that anchor the lining, which I am pleased about. The internet is a wonderful place to learn things!

I am sure that Rachael will love her bag, especially as she chose the yarn and the handles, but I am particularly pleased with the finish quality of this bag. I am definitely improving in this field of endeavour.

When I ran my felting wash earlier in the week, I also added in some more slippers, using my Let's Knit Chilko pattern. This time I used self striping wool, and they have turned out quite funky, if a little uneven.



I don't think I will need to make many more of these slippers for a while, now I have three pairs to wear out, but I don't think I would use this wool again for slippers. The felted fabric is quite scratchy against bare skin, however that means they will probably last longer. I shall just have to wait and see which slippers wear the best over the coming months.

I think this is most of my news, except I have cast on my lovely pink silk sock wool. I am trying to knit two socks at once for the first time. I'll let you know how it goes.

Slow Progress

Once again it feels like forever since I posted a blog update. Once again I blame my manky eye. I went back to the hospital on Tuesday to be informed that I have scarring on my cornea. This did not surprise me as I suffer from adhesions (scarring inside the body). I am very prone to scarring so any damage does tend to leave me worse off than before. The doctor has given me some different drops and I am having to take two sets of drops 5 times a day for the next two weeks and then go and see a consultant. My eye sight is fine, I am not in any pain, but I am heartily sick of dropping liquid in my eye.

On a more pleasant note, the other reason I haven't posted this week is that I have been busy finishing off my Sushi Bag, which has been rechristened "Flower Clutch".



Can you see why I changed the name? I am very pleased with this project, as I believe the decoration work has transformed the bag. I have spent several days embellishing this bag and lining it. The flower was created using needle felting. I used some fibre I got from the Harrogate Show and the needle felting starter kit. I managed to break the needle I got, and as I had got half-way through the flower I decided to invest in a Clover needle felter. I got mine from Mary Clare and feel much safer using this tool than the exposed needle. It also works faster, though not as fast as Clare's embellishing machine, which she allowed me to play with. I may invest in a proper felting mat as the foam block that came with my starter kit seems to be flaking already, and getting stuck in the felt.



After adding the flower, I stitched some Gutterman glass seed beads into the shape of a twisted stem. I filled in the gaps between the beads with some perle cotton in dark green. The stem twists round onto the back of the clutch.



I then, stitched up the lining and sewed on the magnetic clasps using a petersham fabric backing, to ensure that the lining fabric didn't fray. I then stitched the lining inside.



I filed down the rough edges of the dowels and stuck needle felted balls on the ends, to ensure the dowels didn't slide out of the handle slots. This bag will be kept unused, to be displayed in the Mary Clare exhibition in Novembe,r and then given away for Christmas. So now I have two Christmas presents made, how smug am I??

In Knit Along News, I have managed to reach the end of the repeats for the centre panel, that I set myself to do in February. I have placed the panel on a KnitPicks Options cable and put it away until next month. I couldn't face doing the same project, two months in a row, no matter how lovely it is.

I have cast on a square from Debbie Abrahams book Blankets and Throws to Knit. The coloured squares for my blanket come from a pattern called "Flower Power" which has bright colourful intarsia and beaded flowers. I am using the patterns for some of these squares but with the Elle Elite yarn I bought, which has much more muted colours. As soon as I finish my first square I will post a picture.

I have also been working on my scarves. I am about half way through both my Porom Inspired Scarf and my Noro Striped scarf.



This is the second time I have got this far on my Noro Scarf, but I think I made the right decision to start again. The colours are blending much more smoothly and the edges are much tighter.



My Porom Inspired Scarf is quite a complicated knit, so it going more slowly than I originally thought, mainly because if I take it to a knitting group I end up having to rip it back and start again.

I have treated myself to some pretty and girly pink silk sock yarn. I have never worn anything this girly in my life, but I just couldn't resist it. I going to try and find the perfect toe up/heel combo pattern if it is the last thing I do!



Pretty huh? I can't wait to start knitting with it.

Manky Eye, Happy Socks!

I haven't managed to post anything this week, but I do have a very good excuse. Apparently I have an ulcer on my eye. Because of my heavy duty pain killers I didn't notice anything wrong until Wednesday morning when my right eye started streaming. I gave my optician a call and they told me to come in. The optician took one look at it and sent me to Eye Casualty. My what a fun experience that was, sitting around for three hours on uncomfortable seats in between being poked in the eye! The outcome of this visit to casualty was eye drops in the eye, every hour, on the hour for two days. After missing my first night of sleep I was starting to hallucinate and my eye started to get less manky. The second night I allowed myself to put the drops in every two hours. I felt much more rested on Friday, in time for my follow up appointment.

I went back to Eye Casualty and they had another poke and a prod and gave me two other medicines. I was given more drops and an ointment. I am allowed to sleep now whoopeeeeee! However, during the day, I have to put drops in every two hours, the ointment in before bed and another set of drops three times a day. I am very, very tired of the alarm on my mobile phone. I have had to change it once, it may have to be changed again before insanity sets in, because apparently I have to do this for another WEEK!!! I go back to casualty on Tuesday for another follow up.

Between hanging around hospitals and sticking stuff in my eye, I have had very little time to actually produce much creatively. However before all the eye palaver, I did attend a blackwork class at Mary Clare on Sunday. The project we worked on was a Tudor Rose. I have barely started it, but I am sure that I will carry on with it, and it may get me stitching again. There are many other classes being run at Mary Clare on Sundays throughout the year, and I can testify that the lunch is rather nice. If you are interested, I posted a list of the classes on this blog a while ago, here. I will try and finish the project, so you can see how nice it is, but I am not posting pictures until it looks like something!

I am also pleased to report my Happy Socks are now finished. I like this yarn, which is bamboo dominant, and the colours are fab, however, I have made a slight mistake on the striping.



As you can see, the toes are different colours. I couldn't work out what had gone wrong, because I had started the second sock at the right place in the yarn. Then I figured out what had happened.



I got the sock turned around after doing the toe! Because there was a rib on the top of the sock, and I started it in the wrong place, the toes look wrong. So in future, I will remember to check where the top of the sock SHOULD be starting.

There are two other problems with these lovely socks; 1) There are slight holes where the wrap and turn heel joins the main body of the sock, and 2) I started to increase the size of the leg two quickly and too early.



As you can see, I have weird folds at the ankle. This is because instead of graduating the increases, I did them all in one place. I did this on the other socks I made, but it didn't show as much, possibly because of the yarn. Next time I do increases in the diameter of the socks I will start a bit higher up the leg and spread the increases over several rows, to prevent the weird bagging.

Apart from these flaws, I still like these socks and I will use the yarn again. I will use part of the toe up formula again, but I am still searching for the perfect heel. One day I will find my perfect combination of sock patterns and then I will be ecstatic. after reading my previous sock posting I realise that I had intended to try the Jaywalker's with this yarn, maybe I should try again with my next socks.

In other news, I have started my bag for my friend's birthday present. I started knitting from the skein, without winding it into a ball, how dumb was that. When I got myself in a tangled mess I have to rip it back and start again, after winding the yarn into nice fat cakes. I'm so pleased I bought my ball winder. I am going to go and watch the nice BBC iPlayer while I knit up this bag. I only have a couple of weeks to get it finished. I'm glad she only wants a small bag