Phone sock

Thank you to all the people to said lovely things about the multi-coloured cotton jumper, in general I am very pleased with it, and it is nice and comfy to wear. I keep meaning to thank people about their comments in general, it is lovely to hear from you all and to get information and suggestions as well as to hear what you think of my latest bit of knitting. The one thing I would like Blogger to improve is the way the comments work, it would be nice if they were a bit more like LiveJournal, with threads and where it made it easier to reply to comments and continue a discussion. I do like the way that Blogger is better for pictures though, and it seems to be suitably idiot proof that I can manage to operate most things, at least on a basic level.

After the rainbow socks I had a bit of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn left over, and so decided to knit a sock for my mobile. I had been considering doing something similar for a while since the phone is starting to get a bit scratched being thrown in the bottom of my handbag with my keys. So here is the phone in its sock:
And next to its sock:
I am very proud of the beautiful decreases and grafting on the bottom!
And here is the geological boot shot with my hand for scale.
Fun knitting, and being so little it only took a few hours. My sister is quite taken with it and wants one for her phone too, I'll have to get her to select a colour when she is next over. It hardly took any yarn at all.

Definitely sock weather now

I finished these a few weeks ago but it was too warm to wear them then, so I put them on the coffee table so that I could admire them. As is often the way of things on the coffee table they gradually became buried, but I discovered them yesterday, and as it is cold enough for socks I thought they could come out for their first wearing. And very comfortable they are too.

It is remarkably difficult to photograph one's own foot, a little like trying to touch your right elbow with your right hand, a lot of amusement and contortions but not much in the way of results.

The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock bought from Get Knitted, the colourway is Rainbow. This yarn is really nice to knit with, these socks were the first time I tried it, but I am currently working on some more in the colour Purple Club and I have a few more colours in the sock yarn box to keep me going for a while. I think a top knitted out of the sport weight version of the yarn would be nice too.

I've finished the sewing up on the Shapely Tee, it is in the wash as we speak so that hopefully it will be dry for the Design for Knitting day at the V & A. I'll be the one in the very bright cerise top, come and say hello!

Finally!

We've finally had some time when we were both in, so I dragged the other half outside when we got back tonight and made him take a picture of me in the finished multi-coloured jumper.
Unfortunately it was rather dark so the picture isn't fabulous, but it at least gives an idea of the effect. It is pretty comfy, and the body fits really well, I think the upper sleeves are a little large but I wonder whether some of that was me stretching it oddly when I was drying it. Next time I give it a wash I shall try patting it into a more realistic shape to dry.

Technical details, it is knitted in DK cotton, none of it brand-named, which I got in a sale a few years ago.

In other knitting news, the Shapely Tee is nearly finished, just the sewing up to go now. I must be on a roll! Off to do some sewing up now while I watch a bit of Jeeves and Wooster on ITV3.

Shapely Tee

I'm afraid still no photo of my finished multi-coloured cotton jumper. I have been painting the front door most of the weekend and didn't want to get it covered in paint. Hopefully we will have nice weather one of the evenings this week and I can prevail upon the other half to take a picture of me in it.

In the mean time I had rather a lot of DK weight cotton left so decided to embark on the Shapely Tee, a free pattern by Joan McGowan-Michael of White Lies Designs. Somehow the cerise pink yarn I decided to use didn't look quite so bright and pink when I was only using a few rows in the multi-coloured jumper. It is really quite bright and very pink when viewed in a large expanse of stocking stitch.

This is the front, and it is knitting up gratifyingly quickly. It is the first time I have tried short row bust shaping, seeing as with my personal geography it isn't really necessary. I thought I would have a go though as it seemed like a fun idea. I'm not sure whether I have put them too high up though and that they might distort the armhole. It is probably one of those wait-and-see things, hopefully once the sleeves are sewn in it will all look fine.

Anyway, off to prime the rain guard thing I have bought to screw onto the bottom of the door once I finish painting it. I thought painting the guard to match the door might be easier before I have attached it, though it seems to be rather fiddly even still. At least only one more coat of paint on the actual door left to go, hopefully I will be able to get that done tomorrow morning. Must go and check the weather forecast ...

Finished felted bag

I finished this bag a couple of days ago, but have been waiting for nice enough weather to photograph it outside. It was knitted using 4 strands of 2ply lambswool held together and 8mm needles, then put through the washing machine and dryer with my towels twice. I graded the colours from totally purple for the flap through to totally black under the flap.
You can see the colour grading a little better on the back of the bag. I'm afraid my pictures don't show the colours particularly well.
It was fun to knit, and has come out a really useful sort of size. I think after 4 bags though I have got it out of my system for a bit!

New Knitty and an odd kind of day

Odd that is in a good way, just rather bizarre. I had the 6 monthly dentist check-up this morning which all went very well. I am recognised as the one who knits and they always ask what I am working on now and how it is coming along which is rather flattering really. I think this all stems from when we first joined the practice and the other half had a series of fillings done over a period of a few weeks. Sometimes the anesthetic they used made him feel a bit grotty so I would drive him to the appointments and then sit in the waiting room and knit while waiting to drive him back home again. The surreal part of the visit was finding myself trying to explain Projective Geometry to my dentist while making an appointment for my next check-up, and then explaining to the other people in reception why I would be a terrible teacher (its the crowd control thing, I just don't have the personality for it). All this before 10:30 in the morning too.

On my way home I dropped into the post office to pick up the parcel they had tried to deliver while I was taking the other half to work (why is it that parcels always arrive on the day you are out?). It turned out to be my order from Simply Socks Yarn Company. I know you are all probably thinking, after the 64 litres of sock yarn why on earth can she need more sock yarn. What can I say? Its an addiction. They had some lovely things I haven't tried before, and I was quite restrained, I only bought 4 balls / skeins, and one of them was on sale. I got a stripy Regia, a handpaint Opal in shades of green, and two skeins of Fleece Artist merino. They all look lovely and I can't wait to cast on. It is hard to know where to start!

The new Knitty is up! I am very taken with Leaves in Relief, and might have a go at Falling Leaves too, although I might alter the pattern quite a lot on the socks. It is odd really with Knitty, but despite liking the magazine generally this is the first time I have actually found a pattern I am really keen on knitting. I think I have the same kind of thing with Knitty as I do with Colinette. I love the idea of Colinette and I think a wall full of their yarns looks lovely, but when it boils down to it I don't actually like any of the individual colourways enough to actually buy them. Kind of a good concept but I don't like the reality. I think I have had the same thing with Knitty, that I loved the idea, and their techniques articles are always very interesting, but somehow none of the patterns actually inspired me enough to knit it, at least not until now. Now the only problem is finding a suitable worsted weight yarn! I think the only worsted weight I have lying around the house is some skeins of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, but being 80% cotton I think it might be a bit heavy for a pattern with so much texture. I have found a couple of sites which stock the Paton's Classic Merino which is recommended and which will post to the UK but I am quite picky about the feel of a yarn and I am slightly wary about ordering enough for a jumper without being able to feel it first.

Anyway, time to go to bed and dream about knitting. Speaking of which I did actually have a dream the other night about organising yarn into plastic boxes, sad life that I lead :-)

Patchwork Knitting Workshop

On Friday I went to a workshop (with my mum) on Horst Schultz's Patchwork Knitting techniques with Rosie Sykes in Marlow. It was wonderful fun, and we covered lots of different ways of knitting small modules and then knitting more modules onto them.

Rosie was a great teacher, very patient and organised, and we covered all sorts of things, including handy edgings which are easy to pick up stitches from, which I must remember to use in other projects not just patchwork knitting.

Here is an example of the first sort of patchwork squares we were knitting. I have had a go at this sort of thing before, but it was really good to have a reminder, I feel inspired to try out some more experiments with this kind of thing

I really like the effect that baxcraft has achieved with these kind of squares, by knitting with black as the foreground garter stitch stripe, and a multicoloured yarn as the background stocking stitch stripe. I definitely see more playing around with these techniques in my future! Although hopefully with some slightly nicer coloured yarn (you will be pleased to know that the worst horrors of my yarn colour choices aren't being featured on the blog!)

Later on, one of the shapes we had a go at were leaves.

One of the ladies who had been to Horst's workshop last year had brought along a lovely jacket she had knitted using these shapes, very inspiring. I would definitely like to have a go at a scarf using this shape, done in autumn colours. I have a lovely collection of cones of Shetland 4ply which would be just right for this. I am currently knitting a variation on Alice Starmore's Henry VIII in these yarns though so I want to finish that first. After all I would be incredibly annoyed if I made a scarf with some of the yarn and then discovered I didn't have enough left to finish the jumper!

Last of all we had a go at some shells shapes, similar to those done by Maureen Mason-Jamieson. She has a free pattern for a bag using these shapes on her site, but I don't seem to be able to link to it directly. You can find it by clicking on freebies at the bottom of the main page and then clicking on Shell Purse Pattern. Rosie had brought a sample she had knitted in this pattern which was really effective, a lovely choice of colours, and the shapes tile together in a very pleasing manner.

All in all the day was wonderful, if you have a chance to go on a similar workshop definitely jump at it. Marlow was lovely too, we had a little walk around at lunchtime and saw some of the sights. Jill organised the day to perfection, with breaks for tea and coffee just when we needed them (have to fuel the brain cells after all!). I am hoping there will be another one next year, and in the mean time I shall be thinking about what to knit with the techniques I have just learned.

Mummy and Daddy left this morning, so the washing machine is on full blast recycling the sheets for when they are back again in two weeks on their way on holiday! I think I shall be good and knit a bit more of the to-be-felted bag while I wait for the washing to do, and for the weather to cool down a little. We went to Wisley yesterday and bought a couple of nice plants, I think hopefully in an hour or two it might be cool enough to venture into the garden to plant them.