Category Archives: Knitting

Yarn therapy

Posted on by

As some of my Ravelry friends know already, my plans for May were somewhat disrupted. Instead of travelling in the outback, I had to go to Sydney, following the discovery of a brain aneurism. Yep, not exactly what one wants to hear after having a CAT scan, but – looking on the bright side – I’m lucky they discovered it now, rather than on an autopsy, as they can be fatal if they burst.

I’ve seen the neurosurgeon in Sydney twice, had a cerebral angiogram and an MRI, and now I’m back home for a short while, waiting to hear when I’ll be going to hospital. The good news is, I’ll be having the less intrusive procedure – inserting a stent and coils through the artery from the groin. The bad news is, that’s because they can’t do the full clipping surgery (which is cure rather than treatment) because the aneurism is the wrong size and shape, making that surgery too dangerous. So, the procedure I’m having will take about 5 hours, under general anaesthetic, but all going well I’ll only be in hospital for a couple of days, and can then fly home and resume normal life – with some daily blood-thinning medication.

My strategy for dealing with all of this – and keeping my blood pressure down! – has, naturally, involved yarn 🙂

I called into Tapestry Craft in Sydney, and added a little to my stash:

20080522KidSetaYarn
Kid Seta yarn

20080522GrignascoBambiYarn
Grignasco Bambi yarn – probably destined to become some more lacy fingerless mitts.

I also knitted to while away some of the time:
20080522GreenConwySock
The first Conwy sock for me is finished, and the second on the way. The yarn is Heirloom Argyle 4ply, and although it doesn’t show well in my quick photo, its a lovely heathered green.

20080517SwallowtailShawlBeginning
And I’ve done about 6 pattern repeats of the Swallowtail shawl, using The Knittery’s luscious silk/merino lace yarn.

April achievements, May goals

Posted on by

How did I go with my April goals??
1. Finish the Jo Sharp Fisherman’s gansey (only a few more inches on the front to go, then knit the collar and sew it all up) (Is there an echo in here?) – Well, almost! I’ve finished knitting the front. I’ve started knitting the collar. I’m a bit stuck on how the heck to increase 2sts at each end of every row, though. Any suggestions??

2. Finish the baby jacket (only have to do the button bands – but I hate picking up button bands, so this project has stalled too long!) – Ahem. Um. Maybe we should just proceed to the next item.

3. Finish Dad’s socks and post them to him. – Yes!!  Done, posted, received, and they fit him and he likes them.

4. Finish Kerry’s fingerless mittens. – Yes!! Done, given to Kerry, they fit her and she likes them and wore them home.

5. Start something new – a new jacket, or a lace shawl… or maybe both. I’ve got a gazillion patterns to choose from in my Ravelry queue. – Kind of. I’ve bought the Jo Sharp yarn. I’ve started a swatch.

6. Exer-stash fund: earn a bonus $10 for two kilos lost, plus walk at least 60 kilometres. Ahem. <Bron looks embarrassed>. In between gammy leg playing up, and feeling unwell, I’ve only done 17.4 kilometres this month. I haven’t weighed myself this past week, but I’ve possibly gone down another kilo.

May goals:

I’m going to be away travelling for a chunk of May, so setting many goals probably isn’t realistic. But I will set a couple:

1. Relax and enjoy the trip!

2. Select suitable knitting for travelling, and achieve something during the 5,500km we’re driving!

Winter warmers

Posted on by

I finished the fingerless mittens for my friend Kerry today, and gave them to her. She loved them, and wore them home, so I’m very pleased with them.

20080427Kerrymitts3crop2

Yarn: The Knittery 4ply merino/cashmere
Pattern: my own
The true colour is a little darker red than this – more like that in the previous post.

Progress and anticipation

Posted on by

The first of my friend Kerry’s mittens is finished, and work underway on mitt 2. Next time I make mittens or gloves, I really should knit the left one first, because it would be so much easier to photograph – holding the camera in my left hand while taking a photo of my right is a touch challenging!

20080424kerrymitten1

Kerry’s hand is a little longer than mine, so her fingers won’t be hidden!

Since Dad’s socks are finished, and Kerry’s mittens are almost finished, and my fisherman’s gansey will be finished soon, I’m now planning my next project/s. I desperately need respectable cardigans/jackets for winter; I feel the cold, but sometimes jumpers (pullovers) don’t work as well as cardigans for respectable dressing. Daniele at our LYS ordered in some Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran, and when i was in there yesterday I used the gift voucher I have and bought 10 balls of the quartz shade, and put another 10 balls aside to pick up later.

20080424SilkRoadYarn1

Now I just have to decide what pattern to use – I still haven’t found the perfect one, although I’m seriously contemplating the Bianca’s Jacket, with adaptations – longer, and straight fronts. I’ll knit up a sample in the lace pattern and see what I think.

Finished: socks. Started: mitts.

Posted on by

Dad’s Conwy socks are finished. I’ll post them off to him today.

Dad\'s Conwy socks

Next on my list of projects to finish this month is the fingerless mitts for my friend Kerry. I’m on the first one, and have started the first cables:
Kerry\'s fingerless mittens in progress

I love this yarn. I can see more of it in my future 🙂

Dad's Conwy sock(s)

Posted on by

I’ve finished the first of Dad’s socks. Unfortunately, I’m running a little later than I’d hoped, and didn’t finish the pair in time to post yesterday to make it to Dad for his birthday on Saturday. (Don’t worry – contingency plans for an alternative present to arrive on the day have been enacted!)

I’ve adapted the Conwy pattern by Nancy Bush. I first knitted a sock in this pattern some years ago, back in my early sock knitting days, but it came out way too small for me. Dad’s feet and mine are roughly the same size, so this time, I used larger needles, and I didn’t do the decreases to shape the leg. I figured tramadol that the rib/cable pattern will shape to his leg, and allow for any ankle swelling he might get.

Conwy by Nancy Bush.

Now, I’m working on sock 2 – and hoping to have it finished so I can post them on Monday. Sock 2 should be quicker, as I’m not stressing about the size, and I’m more familiar with the pattern. And, thanks to Ravelry, I have notes about the mods I made and how I knitted the heel and the toe, so sock 2 can end up looking at least similar to sock 1!

On other matters, my niece loved her lacy fingerless mittens, and her two friends who were there when she opened the parcel loved them, too!

Lacy mitts – finished!

Posted on by

I finished the lacy fingerless mitts for Lauren two days ago, but only got photos taken today – I needed the DH’s help, as it’s kinda awkward to photograph both of one’s own hands!

Nundle Woollen Mills, Retro 4ply

I’m very pleased with these – other than the slight oopsy of stuffing up the thumb increase on mitten two, and starting it a pattern repeat later than on mitten one – hence one mitt being almost an inch longer than the other. I’m sure Lauren won’t mind – it’s not terribly obvious.

I like these so much that now I need to make a pair for myself!  Despite the lacy holes, they are quite warm, which is good, as we’re moving into autumn down here, and winter gets quite chilly.

Details:

Yarn: Nundle Woolen Mills Retro 4ply (pure wool)

Pattern: improvisation as I went along. The lace pattern is the same basic lace from the Veronik socks.

Lacy capelet pattern – found

Posted on by

A while ago, I posted about my quest for a lacy capelet pattern to knit for an ill friend. It seems other people have been searching for something similar, as there are a fair few people who have come to this blog because of a search on those keywords.

So, I thought I’d report back here.

Although there are some nice patterns about, I didn’t find anything amongst the patterns currently available on the web that was exactly what I was looking for. However, in recent weeks I’ve been acquiring some vintage pattern books (from my trip to Nundle last month, and I’ve bought some from e-Bay), and in one of those books I found a pattern that is similar to what I had in mind (without the bow!):

Lacy capelet vintage knitting pattern

Sadly, my friend is now very ill, and after 5 years of struggle her time left is not long enough to knit this capelet for her. However, because life goes on (and my friend would definitely encourage it!), and because my sister commented in passing recently that my niece likes capelets and other now-trendy-again things, I’m contemplating what this pattern might look like in jewel-coloured, space-dyed yarns…

One lacy mitten

Posted on by

I decided that the lacy mitten gauge was a bit too tight, and after some experimenting, I started again with 3.25mm needles and only 4 repeats of the lace pattern. After using 2.5mm needles, the 3.25mm ones felt huge! Unfortunately I don’t have short 3.25 dpns, so it was a little awkward with only 11 sts on each needle, but nevertheless the first glove knitted up quite quickly and was done in about 24 hours.

Hand knitted lacy fingerless mitten

This tension lets the lacy pattern show more effectively, yet should still be considerably warmer than bare fingers for the frosty, foggy Canberra winter.

I’ve also started Kerry’s red cabled mittens, and have almost finished the 4″ of ribbing at the cuff. (I did 2″ while watching Pirates of the Caribbean last night. I enjoyed the movie more the second time than I did the first time.)

I might have to put Kerry’s mittens slightly on hold for a week or two – Lauren’s birthday is April 4, so I need to finish by April 1 to get them in the post on time, and Dad’s birthday is April 12 (April 9 posting deadline.) I haven’t started socks for Dad yet, so I’ll probably start them today and do the plain knitting while I’m writing, and Lauren’s lacy knitting while I’m watching DVDs with DH in the evening.

Lacy mitts

Posted on by

Having finished the cabled mitts, I started thinking about knitting some lacy fingerless mittens. I have left over Nundle 4ply Retro from the Veronik socks, and I liked the lace pattern in that, so I figured it would probably be easy enough to make mittens around that idea.

Lacy fingerless mittens Nundle 4ply Retro

It’s my niece’s 17th birthday in a few weeks; if these work, she might get a handmade birthday present – unless I decide to keep them for myself! I haven’t used a lacy tension, so the fabric of these is reasonably thick. The idea is that they’ll be warm, as well as decorative.

I had lunch with my friend Kerry yesterday, and she tried on the cabled fingerless mitts. They fit, and she likes the pattern, so I gave her the choice of the three colours I have the merino cashmere yarn in, and she chose the dark reds. I’ll start knitting hers shortly.

In exer-stash news – well, I’ve been a bit off-colour the past week, as DH shared his cold/flu bug with me. I didn’t get it very badly, but enough to make treadmilling an unwise option. Today, though, I was back on it – 2.5km in 31 mins 11secs, and $2.50 in the exer-stash fund. And I have the extra motivation of the bonus $5 if I walk 7 days in a row, so I’m planning to be good!