FO: Lauriel

Finally! I'm sure you've been looking forward to this as much as I have. The ups and downs of this project have been fairly well documented, and there were several given that I officially cast on 1st August 2011 and officially finished 1st September 2013.

The sleeves were too long and had to be ripped back. The button band didn't sit right and needed reinforcing (which took me at least a year to get around to). I'm sure there were dozens of tiny setbacks, and I'm sure I've learned from them all.

The main thing I've learned that I'm not great when it comes to finishing big things, because that involves carrying a lot of stuff around and concentrating for more than 20 minutes, so isn't great on a train or at knit night. The details are great fun, and do carried me through this project sufficiently that it wasn't just a mountain of stockinette, and I knitted the body up pretty quickly. It was the very end stages where I floundered. Blocking took a while (especially as the sleeves were partly reknitted). Ends were not tucked in for ages. Sewing things is especially bad, as shown by the amount of time it took me to do the button band reinforcing.

At the moment I love it; it's not quite the weather to wear wool to work yet, but I'm sure I will. I also had a fairly useless pale blue skirt and an even more useless pale blue handbag, and I've dyed both navy so I have a complete outfit. Result!

The reinforcing [done using this Knitmore Girls video] has improved things but I'm still not mega-happy with the button band. I suspect that over the last two years I have just gained enough weight that, if I were to start now, I might contemplate a larger size.

But screw it, I'm leaving it as it is - and intend to enjoy wearing it just as soon as I get home!

WIP Walk of Shame*

The number of WIPs is getting a bit out of control (for me) these days. Officially, there are ten (!!) things that are not totally finished, or that I'm not totally happy with.

Back in the fold for the past few weeks has been Lauriel. I've been putting off reinforcing the button band for months now, but have finally bitten the bullet and started sewing (using this Knitmore Girls video). The saga of this cardigan has been much-chronicled over the past 2 years, with problem after problem, so was condemned to the naughty corner. Now back in the fold, and fingers crossed I can get it finished before we lose the light evenings.

Skelf has also had a few stumbles on the way; nothing big enough for the naughty corner, but a few time-outs were needed. It's getting big enough that it's difficult to take out and about (where most of the knitting happens these days), and is large enough that it can get a bit too warm to knit in the summer.... excuses, excuses, I know! A slightly cooler week just gone means I've progressed it,  doing the neckline (again) and hoping that we will be ready to do the cast off at the shoulders before too long! [Apologies for the focus on this photo - proper photos when it's finished!].

I've made some good progress on the Vorticity socks I cast on on holiday, though progress has stalled a bit as I don't have enough brainpower at the moment. I am really enjoying the pattern and the yarn, and the two work brilliantly together.

I've also been knitting a shawl, accidentally, as it is not part of the my Knit The Queue plans - oops! I'll tell you the story from beginning to end in a future post. It is very compelling knitting, and progress is good.

I'm also knitting some grey man socks - more on why another day. They are standard vanilla socks in Regia 4ply, that I got with a whole load of other 'man sock yarn' in the Hobbycraft sale. Some excellent mindless knitting, though not currently my favourite project.

The navy and white gloves for OH are not merely on a go-slow as I said in July, but have actually stopped moving at all. Hopefully, taking them away with me this weekend to see said OH will bring back the magic.

Then, there are a few things that are in actual hibernation. First up, we have The Socks With No More Yarn, which I'm still gutted about. However, this week I have actually managed to face them, and get myself stash surfing on ravelry. Fingers crossed, I might actually be able to finish them before too long!

Next up, a glove in yarn that was a present, of which there is only one and I'm not sure I have enough yarn to knit a second one. I'm going to have a bit of an assess (and time with the kitchen scales), and see if we can manage it. Else maybe rip back and turn it into a headband-type thing. 

A hat that I made up the pattern for, but is too short for me. I have more yarn, I just have to rip back to before the decreases. However, it was knitted to match my seriously cold-weather-only coat, which didn't wear at all last year. I reckon that might change this year as I might be further north, so guess I'd better sort this one out as well.

And finally, mittens that are too short at the cuffs. These are waiting on me to finish with some white/cream DK, either from the navy gloves above or from last post's Waterhouse Mitts [rav pattern link]. I then intend to use that to pick up stitches, knit a little stripe and then return to purple. Don't worry, it will sort of match the hat.

So there we have my WIP walk of shame. A lot of it is psychological problems of not being able to face picking up a project that I thought I'd finished, but if I actually want to be able to use the stuff I guess I'd better get cracking!

*With thanks to Steph for the title of this post.

Hangover from 2012

With this knit the queue thing, I have had a little assess of the projects that are still hanging about from last year, and two of them are jumpers.

First off, Lauriel needs a little work - the button band bulges a little about my ribcage (I know, weird place to be unusually fat, such is my lot) so I intend to reinforce it with grosgrain ribbon as in the Knitmore Girls podcast - they made a video about how to do it, by popular demand. I've been planning to do this for about a year now, just I am the master of procrastination when it comes to this cardigan; it has just kicked me one too many times and I cannot face it when there are so many other things to knit that are just as pretty and not so angry. It Just Needs Doing.

The other project I have on the go from Little Red in the City is Skelf, which I was going great guns at before Christmas, but now I've spotted a mistake and procrastinated fixing it enough to lose my place, so I didn't finish it before the new year as I'd hoped, but now it languishes in my knitting bag, also lurking. 

And a third project that has been on the back burner - this is probably a record for me, all be it a depressing one - are the lovely if slightly mad socks I mentioned in my Socktopus post, the magenta ones. I had to ad-lib a bit when it came to sorting out the heel, and there was a big pause while I (freaked out about) carefully considered what to do, as I'm not normally one for deviating from the pattern, especially if it's a pattern I've paid money for. Still, we now have one sock (though sadly no photos as it's for someone who might be reading this), and hoping to cast on the second one for the weekend's train rides.

All this did make be take a bit of a look at the queue. Somehow we are back down at 18 projects, having been at the dizzying heights of 25. Now, I know I finished two last week, I've cast on another two, but we still have two unaccounted for. Clearly, whatever they were, I wasn't that enamored with them as I've totally forgotten what they were! It does seem more manageable now though - and I really want to crack on with them all.

Minor Disaster

So, you may remember that I was making Lauriel from Ysolda Teague's Little Red in the City. There may have been only a few posts about this, but it has been a big part of my knitting life for the past few months (though that contains a LOT of messing about and getting distracted). It was my first garment, and it took a little getting used to. The pattern is lovely and very well written, the yarn was soft and squishy, just my head wasn't in the game.

So, it's basically been waiting for about a month for me to block it. I might like to think that all this messing about and waiting was because I had an impending sense of doom or something, but I doubt it. Anyway, here it is:

Did you spot the problem? Here it is again, in case you missed it.

Yes, while blocking it, it grew 2" in the sleeves. I was very very bitter, as before it had fitted perfectly. After much cursing and bemoaning the situation, I manned up and decided that the first steps was to reblock it, and the second step is to rehash the sleeves. Unless you guys have any better ideas? Please?? Otherwise the destination for my weekend is Frog City.

PS. Apologies for the state of the photos, but I wasn't going to waste even more time waiting for some decent daylight to photograph it, in the state it's in.

What I've been doing lately... again.

It has been a while, hasn't it? I apologise. I've been under the weather. Had a ton of work to do. The ususal. A lot has happened, but sadly it is getting to that time of year when I have to be a bit careful and not tell you about any Christmas presents I'm making.

First up in things that have progressed is Lauriel. Look, she's almost there! Cardigan-shaped! Sleeves! Can actually try it on!

Sadly, the next thing is picking up for the button bands when there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth so I have been procrastinating that.

Next on the list is some gloves to match a hat (Woolly Wormhead's QL Slouch) from the remaining yarn. Since I loved knitting the hat and I generally love knitting mittlets, they knit up a treat.

Don't get too attached though. They're being frogged as I'm a) 1g short of yarn to do the second one and b) they're a little tight. Attempts to acquire more yarn have so far failed. A G&T tonight and they will be frogged, to wait for a day with more decisive-ness.

I also had a minor disaster with a sock (the fab self-striping ones photographed poorly here). Just turned the heel, popped it in my handbag to do on the bus and horror of horrors- one dpn has pulled out completely. The one with all the heel stitches on. So now I need to rescue that and crack on with it.

So, after having a few minor knitting disasters this week, I knitted a hat for this poor fellow over the weekend.

It is a very basic hat and I knit it in under 24 hours from stash yarn (from the Box of Yarn That Doesn't Exist i.e. is full of low-grade DK or odds & ends). Clearly I did something odd with the decrease rate but I like the result given that I made it up as I went along. And the recipient has been suitably grateful which makes the whole endeavor worthwhile.

What's on my needles

I have realised in all my excitement of travelling to the four corners of Britain, it has been a fair while since I have mentioned what I'm actually knitting. And this is because, for the lat month, it has been dominated by one item: Lauriel.

I am a lot in love with this pattern and apart from some teething problems with the rib at the start has flowed off my needles (as I mentioned a while ago). Except, it has been a very busy month and so it is not getting the attention it deserves. Much progress was made during my working from Scotland days, but this stalled as I reached Cambridge and the ribbing at the bottom of the body. I have come to the simple conclusion that I have the wrong number of stitches which is why the ribbing won't work, have fudged accordingly and need to see how it turns out.

Meanwhile, I needed something to do in the seminars I attended in Cambridge. Socks were an obvious solution.

My coursemates were supportive and maybe a little impressed with my skills over the fortnight (I did only get in about an hour a day, with note-taking). I was wondering if I could come up with a decent name for the project and when I asked my neighbour she said unhesitatingly 'The Sanity Socks'. After all, what is better for keeping your head during ten 12-hour days plus a half-day Saturday than some self-striping socks?

When I was at home for a few days and needed some knitting for while I was catching up with Torchwood (still very behind though, tsk!), I picked up my first ever knitted thing: the Garter Stitch Scarf. Last year I decided it was too short to be useful, so grabbed some extra wool in an end-of-line sale to make it useful again. As the weather begins to turn colder, I fear I may need it sooner rather than later!

I will probably have more exciting travel stories when I next write. Until next time x

"WIP Wednesday" - Lauriel

Today I am doing a (belated) WIP Wednesday because at the moment I only have one thing on my needles, and that is an Exciting Thing. It's belated because I passed out on the sofa about 9pm, woke up an hour later and decided nothing was coming between me and my bed!

Pattern: Lauriel, from Little Red in the City.
Yarn: Subline Extra Fine Merino DK, from Baa Ram Ewe (shop link) in 138 (Reefer)

I have been dying to make garments for a long while now, and I had a good introduction with the bolero, but to be honest, that was so easy it hardly counted. Lauriel is a different beast - I need to think about fit and sizing and guage a lot more. After trying on the sample at the Ysolda event at my LYS and it fitting perfectly, size 34 was clearly the way forward. I measured and I'm a 35 - all good so far. There is increasing to do and that doesn't look too bad. I'm warned there is going to be some maths for bust darts, so we shall have to see how I get on with that. But the little bit I have done has been enjoyable knitting, a well-written pattern though required some brain power (and several frogging episodes when my brain stopped!) The yarn is brilliant to work with; I have a slight tendency to go through it especially on 'tbl' stitches but is so soft gives lovely stitch definition.

Though there is a long way to go....

Ysolda @ Baa Ram Ewe

I have a pretty epic confession to make. I totally failed to take my camera to this event. I know. FAIL. I do hope that my photos from home (and one scrounged from a friend) will suffice.

First, the book.

It is an excellent, excellent book. It has so much stuff in it that I do not know, and probably should before embarking on proper garment knitting. I do have a tick of never being able to remember knitting pattern names, and so I wrote them on those blue page-marker post-it notes you can see peeking out. Now my knitting pals thinks I'm a bit of a stationary geek! How little they know....

Back to the point, I had already spent a fair while looking through the book, and the two patterns that caught my eye were Lauriel and Skelf (the little red website has photos). The best part was that there were samples to try on and the smaller size was pretty much perfect for me! To my mind, Lauriel clearly goes better with skirts and Skelf would work better with jeans & boots - though both would work with either, I'm sure - and since I'm into skirts at the moment, Lauriel is went to the top of the To Knit List!

It's going to be knit in this: Subline extra-fine merino DK

This was mainly because it was recommended by baa ram ewe (the advice is currently on the front page of their website). It was rather a treat for myself but I justified it. After all, I had a knitting funk on!

And since you only live once, I also got the deeply cute project bag, as you can never have enough and my sweater-sized one is full of the guilt-inducing Grandma's Cardigan (more on that soon!).

And it was all totally worth it: my knitting funk has been knocked for six! It was a great evening talking a lot about knitting with some lovely ladies (photo by Rachel at Reward(ing) Memories)