A Trip Down South

My other half and I had a little trip down south this weekend. I am only just recovered from all the travelling so can only now tell you about the crafting that took place. The trip was to South Somerset to visit the in laws. We had a lovely time being pampered and being force fed very very nice food. My in laws have recently moved to South Somerset, which is much further for us to travel and this causes me to be much more tired and sore when I arrive, however it does give me more knitting time! I find that knitting in the car helps me focus on something other than my twinges when we go down bumpy motorways, though it is sometimes harder to read the pattern.

I finally finished my Noro Stripy Scarf that has been hanging around at various knitting groups for months.



I'm very pleased with the way the scarf ended up looking and the length is perfect. I even have a ball of the yarn left over which may stretch (along with the rest of the scraps) into a hat. I will probably leave that until the winter though.

After finishing my scarf I cast on a brand new project, that I have not mentioned before. I have been looking for a garment to make for myself. I didn't want to spend a small fortune on wool, which is tricky when you are of ample measurement around the chest area. I also wanted to make something that I could use straight away and wouldn't have to sit around until the winter months to be worn. I found the perfect project in Rowan Magazine No. 44. I decided to make a Short Sleeved Bacall (Rav Link)by Sarah Hatton. This is a lovely short sleeved shrug made of Kid Classic and should take me through Spring right through to Autumn. I was very tempted to make it in a pretty teal colour but decided to be practical and settled on a silver grey instead.



This project grew very quickly over the weekend and I already have the back finished.



I am approximately a third of the way through the front left section and as I am enjoying the knit so much I think I will be finished by the end of the month.

While in Somerset I was encouraged by my MIL to try a new craft that I had never heard of before, Encaustic Art. This involves melting wax on an iron and then applying it to a shiny card. You can use different heated tools to "paint" with the wax. My MIL only had the iron but it was great fun to play with. I produced this....



It was such fun, and I intend to play with the set again next time I visit. I don't think my Other Half will play again after managing to singe himself though. It has given me all sorts of ideas, as you can apply the finished picture to fabric, which is washable. I may have to take some fabric next time.

After my return home I started work on my April Kitty Swap kitty. I think she is going to be a bit of a glamour puss this time.



I may finish off a little furry jacket for her to wear, I haven't decided yet. It will depend on who my swapee is, as to what her finished look is. I did make her a little handbag though, which is even properly lined, using the scrap of fabric left from lining my fair isle bag. I think it matches well.



Once again, I think I will find it hard to let go of this kitty. I may have to keep it for my SIL who requested a kitty for Christmas, that way I get to keep it for a little bit longer.... hmm I've got time to knit another one for the swap, don't I?

More Bag Lining

I am seriously getting into my sewing groove. I lined another bag yesterday. I feel like I am actually improving every time I use my sewing machine. This time I was lining my Fair Isle Bag. I designed and knit it for college, during Summer Term 2008. Wel,l I started it during the Summer Term, I only got it finished during the Autumn Term.

You may remember, I hated the idea of colour work but ended up with this bag that I have become very attached to. I have used it a great deal, as it is a perfect size for quick trips out of the house, when I don't need to take knitting or books. Because this bag has been getting much love, the stranding was beginning to catch on things, like zippers and keys. I finally decided that the time had come to line the bag. I am very glad that I did, as it has improved everything about the bag.

I started with plastic grid bag bottom lining. I cut pieces to fit the base of the bag and also two extra small pieces to brace the corners.



I sewed these pieces into the base of the bag and I now have a firm base to the bag which has improved the overall shape immensely. I then took the opportunity to re-stitch the bag strap into the bag more securely as it was starting to stretch and pull the bag out of shape. I had previously only secured the knitted outer piece of the strap onto the bottom, and top, of the bag. This time, I stitched through the knitted outer and the woven inner and the bag. This should make the bag less likely to stretch.

I then sewed the bag lining and also attached a small pocket for my mobile phone, as I had discovered that scrabbling around for it was not fun. I also added a magnetic clasp to hold the top of the bag closed. I then sewed the bag lining into the top of the bag.



The bag looks much more finished and I am pleased that the bag will no longer gape open, encouraging things to fall out.

The lining of the bag, plus all the other modifications, has strengthened the bag and improved the outer look as well as the inner.



I am so glad I took the time to line the bag, as I am sure that I will now get a much longer time to enjoy it. It only took me 6 hours to line this bag, hopefully this time span will get shorter with practice, because I am going to try and line every bag I make from now on, as it really does make a profound difference to the finished product.

Two Finished

I have been knitting like fury this last couple of days and can report, with much satisfaction, that I have finished two projects! I have to admit though, that it took a bit longer than it should have done. I am afraid, I got cocky on the second sock and didn't read my own pattern instructions, not once, but twice, so I ended up knitting the toes three times. However, the finished toes are rather fabulous, even if I do say so myself!



I used a video on YouTube to show me how to graft the socks this time, and played it and replayed it whilst I stitched, and I think this careful copying has finally nailed it. I have saved the video in my YouTube favourites so I don't lose it when I need it again. If you want to use it yourself, it is here.

As you can see, the pattern in the socks does not line up exactly, and I think this is because my tension was very slightly tighter on the second sock. I don't think it matters though.



After wearing the socks for a few hours, I can safely say that they are very comfortable, with my one complaint being, the sole of the heels feel a little bit narrow. I am sure that as I try more socks patterns and different heel turning techniques I will find the perfect heel and amend my saved pattern accordingly.



With that in mind, I have bought some lovely Wendy Happy wool in the colour Pisces to make my next socks. I have chosen Grumperina's pattern Jaywalker which seems to be very popular and some people have already used a combination of the sizes worked together, the way I want to.



The colour is not great on this photo, as the colours are more greeny in real life. But I think this fabulous bamboo/nylon mix will look beautiful in this pattern and wear really well.

In addition to my completed socks, I have finally finished (trumpet sounds) the Fair Isle Bag. I can't believe I have been knitting this since November!



I attached the strap inside the bag, to the base and then stitched it around a piece of binding, using mattress stitch. I then stitched the strap to the top of the bag to keep the bag in position.



I had thought about lining this bag, but I really can't be bothered when nobody but me is going to see inside it. If I find the strands of yarn catching, I may change my mind. But as far as I am concerned it is now in the "completed" list.

I started knitting the test pattern for BettyKnitter last night. I got this great cheap yarn from Kangaroo. It is Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk Aran in Burnt Ginger. It is scrumptious and as it was the last ball, I got it very cheap. It is soft as butter and I wish I could afford to knit a whole garment in it. However, until I win the Lottery, I will have to stick to single skein projects like this one.

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When I have finished knitting, I will post more about this. Until then, please excuse me while I feel smug about completing, not one but, TWO projects this week!

Post Christmas Round Up

I am totally over stuffed with Christmas chocolate, cake and ice-cream. I spent most of the Christmas period either eating or knitting and, I am now the size of a small bungalow. It is only because my hands were busy, with wool and sticks, that I did not become the size of a 5 bedroom detached house in the country. Thank you knitting, you have saved me once more!

I had a wonderful Christmas and have received positive feedback regarding most of my knits. I have not received any negative feedback, so I can carry on in blissful ignorance if my knits were loathed with a passion and stuffed down the back of a chest of drawers. I am pretty sure my SILs were very pleased with their knits as I got a text message at the crack of Christmas dawn thanking me for the shawl I made for Emma.....



....... and Juliana kindly wore her purple socks all Boxing Day. I think she was pleased with them because she was dropping very large hints about how I could make bed socks, couldn't I? A little birthday hint methinks... like I'd ever forget her birthday when it's the same day as mine.

This Christmas holiday, my journeying in cars was a lot more bearable than usual, as I decided to knit in the passenger seat. Normally a long drive leaves me feeling tired and in pain, but this time I not only felt tired and in pain, but I had shed loads of knitting to show for the time, which has to be an improvement. Looking at my knitting at least made me smile after getting out the car, which is quite a rare occurrence, even if it was a little feeble.

I have managed to get to the decrease rows on my Porom hat. It is looking so pretty, I really hope I don't ruin it now with all these complicated K3Tog TBLs and SSKs. I have had to undo the first row of decreases twice already, but I blame the Christmas TV for these mistakes. I stopped after the second go and decided to leave the hat until I was home and watching something less interesting. Again I give thanks for the life lines.



The Sumptuous Stripy Scarf is going great guns and I am sure it will be finished in next to no time.



The Fair Isle Bag is pretty much on its final push, with the bag bit all finished and the strap pretty much half done. I'm doing the strap in double moss stitch and it is looking good thus far. I think that this stitch is very similar in appearance to the double crochet bag bottom, which ties the bag nicely together.



As these three projects are getting to the wrapping up stage, I have been thinking about what to cast on next, and I have been very inspired by the new book I got for Christmas, "Knitting Never Felt Better" by Nicky Epstein. I am going to do some serious thinking about which of the oodles of techniques to opt for as there were so many in the book that I KNOW I am going to want to try around 50 different things. I was already bitten with the felting bug, and this book has completely ramped up my addiction levels. Felting is amazing and magical and I can't wait to get started. If you have ever been tempted to try felting but thought it was only useful for bags, this bag is chock full of serious inspiration. The other book I got was "The Vogue Ultimate Knitting Book" which I have only had time to flick through but it also looks fantastically useful and inspiring.

On the Christmas present front, I finally got the knitting needle case from my brother and SIL which I chose at the Harrogate show. It is made by Lantern Moon and is sooooo beautiful. I just sit on the sofa with it beside me whilst I knit, and stroke it periodically. I love this case so much as it is an item of beauty that also has a valuable function.



One important lesson I relearned this Christmas is that my Mum is allergic to wool. I had totally forgotten that she is allergic to lanolin, and where does lanolin come from...? Yes, that's right from WOOL!!! I can't believe I was this dumb. I am so grateful I decided not to make her the felted slippers I thought about. Phew.... lack of time saved me. I must now go on a hunt for some pretty yarn that my Mum can wear, so she can receive a knitted item in the future. Any suggestions?

I am feeling sooooo smug!

Yup I you may have guessed it, I have finished ALL my Christmas knitting. Not only that, I have finished all my Christmas SHOPPING. Now all I have to do is wrap it all. This is not a small task. My OH bought a couple of rolls of wrapping paper yesterday, but I'm not sure if that will be enough. I can't face starting to wrap them today, because I spent all yesterday working on my SILs present. I am just about Christmassed out, and think I deserve a little break.

Once again I won't post any pics of the present for my SIL, as she may see it, nor will I discuss my workings on here either, but if you are interested, and you are on Ravelry, the link is here.

I can, however, discuss my Fair Isle Bag. This project is going really well, though it has hit a few bumps on the way. I spent several days over the last week or so trying out different ways to put a base on the bag. It sounded so simple in my head, pick up stitches and stocking stitch the base. But when I got half way through it just didn't look right. So I decided to start in the round and do decreases at the corners at the bag, this also did not look right, so eventually I settled on doing the base in double crochet. I also decided to use the dark teal colour for the base so it contrasted more with the main body of the bag.



The double crochet also feels more sturdy than stocking stitch and I think will be more robust for when it gets chucked on the floor. I tried putting my hand bag swapper inside, and the bag did stretch a little. I think the stretch means I will have to line it somehow. I have decided, to at the very least, knit the top inch or two of the lining in stocking stitch. I picked up the stitches at the top of the bag, from the provisional cast on, and knit one row in the round and then purled a row to make a nice neat fold.



I am going to carry on knitting in the round for at least an inch and then decide if I I am going to knit the whole lining or whether I am going to use fabric. Fabric may be more sturdy, and I picked up some nice cream lining material in a sale the other day. Sewing the lining will probably be quicker, as well as neater and stronger. Whilst I am working on the lining I am also considering the best of way of making a strap. I think I may use the same method as the base so the strap doesn't stretch too much. Do you have thoughts on how to attach the strap? I am thinking it should be reasonably wide and don't know whether to attach it inside the bag, or run it down the side of the bag to join onto the base. I'm sure it will come to me.



All in all, I am very pleased with the way this bag is turning out. Quick to make, it is not, but I have really enjoyed designing my own bag. I am sure it will be finished by next term so I can take it into college as a finished project.

On a different project, last night I worked on my Scrumptious Scarf. It was my reward for finishing everything else off, and working so hard on projects that required much thinking. I love that scarf so much, I think I am going to have a little weep when I don't get to knit it anymore. Though I am looking forward to wearing it, my own piece of luxury.

Too many WIPs

I officially have too many WIPS. I went to college last week and pulled out the bag with my college project in it, from my craft box. I packed all the other things I needed to take with me; my library books, my needles and spare yarn, folders of patterns and notes and put everything into my shopper.

Yes I am terribly embarrassing and have a shopper like the little old ladies take round the market. My only excuses are that I have lots to carry, I am poorly and its quite a chic black and grey model rather than a tartan one. I know that doesn't appear much different, but let me assure you it is - at least in my head!

Back to my story, I got to college and opened up the shopper and started pulling out all my stuff until I got to the project bag. I opened it up and inside it was the fair isle tank top from hell! I couldn't believe it, I was so cross with myself. I had just looked at the wool inside the bag and it is of course the same wool I am using for my fair isle bag, which was designed to use the tank top wool. I was very cross with myself as I was unable to work on my current project in class. I obviously have far too many WIPs and I do not want this problem to reoccur and for me to end up taking the wrong project bag when I go out.

I have come up with a solution. In the spirit of Ravelry, I have decided to label each WIP. I have printed out little labels with a photo of the project, and the title so that I can easily see what is inside the bag.



I use bags from Tesco as my project bags most of the time. I do use my Little Acorn Bag but it is only one bag, and it is quite small. The Tesco bags are pretty large as they are designed for shopping, but they can be screwed up small, they are light, smooth, so delicate yarn does not get caught on edges and cheap at 75p each. They have worked very well as project bags but they did cause the earlier mix up because they all look alike. I'm hoping that the new labels, will stop any further confusion.



Talking about my fair isle bag, it is coming along nicely and my tutor is very impressed with my design skill. I hope she is still impressed when it is all finished off and the design written up as I offered her a copy of the pattern. It might be nice to get her input into the pattern writing side of things as she obviously knows what she is talking about, being a tutor and all!

As I have currently too many WIPS I decided yesterday to start another one. It was only a quicky though.



This will be a felted glasses case. The pattern was a freebie from Plain Jane Creations, via her Ravelry page. This lovely lady in Australia writes an interesting blog with great photos and she designs fabulous felted items. I have a link to her blog in the list to the left, under "Blogs That I Like".



Now that this project is all knitted up, all that is required is felting. I am going to make a stack of small items to be felted and do one big session in the run up to Christmas, though I am intending to keep the glasses case for myself.

When I have photos of my felted items I will post them as soon as possible, but it may be a little while before I have enough to warrant turning on the washing machine. Hopefully having one thing finished, will encourage me to get on with some more to add to the pile.

Creating a Pattern

I am creating my first proper pattern. I don't mean the basic tinkering that everyone does, but the actual starting from scratch with NOTHING to help me. It is slow going but am quite proud of the progress so far.

This leap in my knitting career has been brought about by my true loathing of the Fair Isle Tank Top that I have been doing for college. This was a huge project that I would never wear and would take forever. I decided that what I needed to do was find a nice small pattern that I could knock up quickly and get the thing over and done with. I have spent DAYS looking at Ravelry patterns and could not find anything that fit my requirements i.e. DK wool, small, free, not hugely patterned, not too simply patterned. I know I was probably being overly fussy but I just could not find anything I wanted to make. Then I remembered a messenger bag that I had as a teenager. It was made in cotton but it was fair isle. I loved that bag so much it eventually died a slow and lingering death. This bag inspired me. I decided that "surely it's not THAT hard to make a bag pattern". I don't know if it is too hard or not yet, but I can tell you that so far it is going well.

I started off designing the pattern using a cross stitch design program. This enabled me to create a fair isle pattern that struck a balance between complexity and simplicity that suited me. It was designed with the wool, that I had already bought, in mind and I feel it works well with these colours.



This is what I have knit so far. I decided to knit in the round and this has made a huge difference in my knitting. The stitches are not all compressed together and I can see what I am knitting. The floats are much looser than previous attempts at fair isle and the speed I am knitting is much quicker. I have also used stitch markers at each repeat of the pattern, so when I get distracted I can easily find my place again. This has eased my progress quite significantly.



As this project progresses I am going to keep track of what I am doing and try and write up the pattern. I don't think anyone will want to use it, but I think creating a pattern will be a very valuable exercise.

In addition to this fair isle project, I am trying to crack on with Christmas presents. I will post the presents after Christmas as I don't want to spoil any surprises!