Blocking, and... not.

I clocked up two FOs on Ravelry today - go me. Neither is an Olympic project, but both have been "95%" projects for a while, which in my personal lexicon means "it's all over bar the shouting". In effect, the things need blocking, or buttons need to be found and sewn on, or labels need to be attached with washing instructions, that sort of stuff... And for some reason, keeping them at 95% on Ravelry motivates me more than having to move them every time I want to sit down and eat... I know, that worries me, too.

Today's projects, however.

First I present you Flutter: this is a MimKnits pattern by Miriam Felton, utterly beautiful and I thought it would go very well with businesswear. The original is a soysilk blend which lends weight; I was using a remnant of denim-blue Colourmart cashmere which I'd dyed into a semisolid purple, and I added the weight by using beads (#8 blue-plum raku beads from Beads Direct, to be precise; 2 tubes needed...)

It's gorgeous. I love the way she does the increases and I've loved wearing it today... Blocking -erm; nope. I gave it a good hot steamy iron instead...

Second up : my second Hemlock Ring Blanket. Just realised I've got in there 2 days before the anniversary of Brooklyn Tweed blogging it in the first place. Because this was for me, it's been lying around for ages while babies were born, Christmases and fairs came and went... so here we are. I used Classic Elite's Mackenzie Tweed. No links to the yarn because Texere had it on sale for a couple of months last year but it's discontinued. It's a wool and silk mix which looks like oatmeal; but as I'm a horribly lazy blocker, and had actually washed this whole thing in shampoo and put it through the spin-cycle three times before finally pinning it out, it's got softer and softer each time...

Blocking: yes, severely. The silk seems to have made sure I don't have the sort of rucheing I had with the last one... I just wish you could get Clover blocking pins easily here, the 2-pronged sort; they're amazing.

Having brought the blanket down in triumph this evening and laid it on the sofa... I've decided I don't like it there after all. Instead, I've moved it over to the chair by one of the bookcases, which has a strange bow-legged charm...

And because I've kept the downstairs tidy(ish) for a whole week, and I do like it like that, a gratuitous calm-and-tranquil house photo with some beautiful statice and everlasting flowers I bought today... I've actually printed this picture out and am going to put it on the boiler in the kitchen to remind me of how nice the place looks tidied up...

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone! I'd take a picture of the daffs I had in the garden yesterday, but their little yellow heads are all flat and snow-covered...

Sunday, 8:30 am




Second coat of yellow going on...

And - knitting!! Not the greatest of photos - beads don't show up too well in daylight... But here's the first end of the Flutter scarf with beads...

The reveal....

Yes, it's going to be yellow again... But without the stripes...

And as you can see, I've not done a lot today. The lurgy came up and hit me overnight, so having spent most of the night blowing my nose, hacking up green gunk and being generally completely unable to get warm enough, I did my library shift this morning and went back to bed at 1pm for a short nap. I woke up at 6 when the street light outside the bedroom window came on! Oops.

I'm intending to get the rest of this coat of emulsion on though - it'll need at least one more coat to cover the remnants of the stripes and the Polyfilla... I'm using a paint pad, which is quick but gives quite a thin coat.

Tomorrow, the reason for losing the stripes... Otherwise, it's a bit 'move along, nothing to see here...'

I may also get my Flutter scarf cast off - the first half, anyway. It's taken about an hour to cast off so far, because I'm beading every stitch using the crochet-hook method, and it increases to around 180 stitches towards the end... Probably utter insanity, but looking damn good, though, and the usual really easy-to-follow Mim pattern - written and charted directions. Photos when that half's done...

Mother of invention...

So having planned out today (trip to Peter Jones, morning meeting, productive rest of day) I then spent the first half of the night throwing up... No work for me today... Gah!

Which also meant no emergency yarn trip to Peter Jones - I work earlier on Tuesdays so I can get to one of the KTogs a month, and have a lunchtime meeting...

Once I'd woken up again around lunchtime, I had a rummage and found two-thirds of a ball of 4-ply Matchmaker in a leaf green which, while still Clearly Wrong in colour,

didn't look as if it was going to be impossible to tweak to being a right colour. Into the dyepan with a smidge of dark brown it went; then into the tumble-dryer after its rinse (wrapped in tulle and tied several times... Et voilà. I was quite pleased...

Being around and still feeling generally crappy meant I got quite a lot of knitting done. I'll have to pull out about 3" on the sleeve I've done most on because of the way the self-patterning yarn was wound - if I'd realised I'd be using a solid colour for the tops of the sleeves, I'd have waited until the front and back were both done - but it's getting there. And I have lots of odds and ends for the neckband...

While I was winding this yarn and yarn for an Etsy order (thanks, Heather!) I thought I might as well see how much cashmere was left on the cone of denim blue "heavy laceweight" I used for my Hanging Garden stole. Turns out there was about 540m before washing - so that went into the dyepot too. I think it's going to be a Flutter - but I'll be adding some matte raku beads to it too as I bought two tubes for another project which didn't in the end need them...