Rainy Saturday

Quite productive, though... I did my library shift, proofread Chart B for the Mystery Stole project, went to Ely to do my shopping (and spent quarter of an hour or so in a pub with smokers, reflecting happily that this was the last time I'd have to air out my knitting when I got home!); armed with new audiobooks, I finished Clue 1 on the stole.



This isn't a great picture - but I'm working it on short straight needles (they're Bryspuns, the points are wonderful, but they're only 10" needles). I have an Addi lace needle on order, but it's probably caught up in the postal backlog...

Back to the baby sweater - before she grows out of it...

Oh, and the Bug clearly approves of the Irish Diamond shawl...

Strange days indeed

I thought I'd be doing the stuff in the middle today now that MS3 has released its first clue; the stuff on the outside, not so much, but it's been immense fun!

MS3

Finally did my swatch for Mystery Stole 3; this is KnitPicks Shadow in Vineyard, a heathery dark purple, swatched on 3.5mm (US4) BrySpun needles. This photo makes it look too orange...






This picture gets the colour more accurately, and has both lots of beads on it. The raku one at the bottom (what I originally thought I'd be using) looks pretty, but doesn't catch the light, and there's not enough sheen on the yarn to make up for that; the two amethyst ones are the same colour as the yarn but glow slightly...





I'm also using these for the Irish Diamond Shawl from Folk Shawls; they're slightly too small for the yarn, so I'm going to try and get some 6/0 in the same colour to finish that one. Here's a picture of the yarn which gets the colour better than the last one:

- on Saturday I went to London and knitted at Stash with Jan and other people I hadn't met before, as well as seeing Michelle and Nic again; and Brigid commented that the last photo made this yarn look much more purple than it is. So does this next one, and the beads don't show up too well, but it's looking good so far, and a present from Jan of an Addi Lace Needle has it whizzing along nicely...




Am working from home today - the pips have just gone to signal the end of my lunchbreak so I'll stop now!

Bit of a find

I've stuck faithfully to the Knitting from my Stash idea all year, apart from my two Official Occasions for Sin at Textiles in Focus and SkipNorth. But when I was in Bury last week with my brother and SIL, I sneaked into the local Hospice Shop. For some reason, Hospice shops seem to be very good for books; but I was confronted with this :
pack of 10 balls for a fiver; and could not resist - I fell. I'm not a great fan of orange, but it is the most beautiful yarn... so I dyed it; and here it is: 2300m of 3-ply - I'm thinking Big Shawl...

Now with knitting content!

I started a new thing - little baby sweater for a colleague's baby, Bethany. To both parents' surprise, this one's a girl; so I thought laciness and pinkness might be in order... It's a feather-and-fan type pattern over a 12 stitch repeat (I'm never sure whether f-and-f has to be over a certain no. of stitches or rows, or whether you need to K2tog all the way along rather than doing half of the decreases as SSK for it to count) , using measurements from the unfailingly good Tadpoles and Tiddlers (I'm not generally a Rowan groupie, but if you buy one pattern book when friends start having children, this really is the one... Looking at my scribblings in the front, this is the 30th jumper I've knitted from this book, whether it's just taking the measurements, just taking a motif or knitting the whole thing as written. Looking at the Rowan site they're doing a special offer, which generally means that's the end of the stock. Most of the yarns are now discontinued, but they're standard DKs, 4plys and arans. OK, enough of an advertisement.)

Yarn for this one is some Meilenweit cotton/wool blend which Jan didn't get on with; in the background, a thankyou note from Lorna for the green jumper with the flower on it - they always send thankyous, and I always keep them...

A couple of photos from last week: my sister-in-law Hazel and brother Dom on the bridge at St John's college during our wander around Cambridge last Monday afternoon;

and St John's Street in Bury St Edmunds last Wednesday lunchtime. We were stunningly lucky with the weather all three days.

And to top and tail this post with knitting; The Unbloggable Project Has Left The Needles.

It's now been replaced by... another Unbloggable Project. It's going to be one of those years...

Long time, no blog

I've been busy. Work has been as insane as it usually is in the middle of June; and I taught all last weekend, and then had my brother and SIL to stay. I'm really looking forward to an evening in, and a weekend where I can sleep late - and at least the house is nice and tidy...

Most of the knitting has been for the course, or the Unbloggable Project (now a very large piece of washing indeed, and 20 rows off the end...). Here's the room during the course last weekend - I was teaching at White House Arts, a lovely venue with extremely friendly owners/organisers and very nice course participants!

Here's one of the samples I produced for the course - short-row circle, two ways of attaching beads, shaping on the needles...

... and here's the very beautiful handmade pendant Caroline Amory, White House Arts' owner and artist in textiles, glass and all sorts of other things, gave me... isn't it gorgeous?

I did a little spinning - there's 88 grammes of this Jacob yarn, and about 100 metres... not the most evenly spun yarn in the world, but I'm reasonably pleased with it and keen to do some more at the weekend...

I also signed up for the Mystery Stole 3 KAL which starts on June 29 and have had fun sorting out yarn and beads for it...

And finally I was really pleased to see that Jan's book 200 Ripple Stitches turned up on the Knitty Cool Stuff page this time round! It's a gorgeous book...

Finished...

I forget that knitting a birthday jumper for a 6-year-old is actually a reasonable-sized undertaking... so I left it way too late, and got sidetracked by an Unbloggable Project, and was still sewing in ends at at 1:30 this morning. But at lunchtime I finished sewing, and made the neckband, and this evening neckband and buttons were sewn on; and if we can co-ordinate, it'll get to the birthday girl on The Day, tomorrow...

I wish I'd had time to wash this - stranded stuff (I wrongly labelled this as intarsia last time, but actually it's more Fair-Isle) usually 'sits' better after a wash. But it's not as if it's going to be worn more than a couple of times before washing, anyway...

It's been a hell of a week at work, so a Nice Bright Finished Object with matching card is a cheery finishing note... full speed into the weekend now!